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Home , Gerald Blidstein, Hormah, Perizzites, Toledot

Mezuzah Revisited. Parshat Vaetchanan.

Mezuzah Revisited. Parshat Vaetchanan. By Chaim Sunitsky. on this Parsha ( 6:9) says that since the word Mezuzot is written without the Vav[1], only one Mezuzah is necessary. It’s generally assumed that Rashi can’t argue with a clear Talmudic statement that every door of the house needs a Mezuzah[2] and therefore he can’t be understood at face value. However the custom in many places in Medieval Europe had always been to only affix one Mezuzah per house[3]. We will now try to examine if indeed there ever was a tradition that supported this minhag. The Rema makes a unique statement in Yoreh Deah (287:2): “The commonly spread minhag in these countries is to attach only one Mezuzah per house and they have nothing to rely on”. This statement is very unusual. Rema is known for supporting Jewish minhagim and it’s very common for him to use the expression “common minhag” often followed by a statement that this minhag should not be changed, or at least that this minhag can be relied on. Here however the Rema is saying just the opposite: the minhag has nothing to rely on and a “yere Shamaim” person should affix the Mezuzot on every entrance. It’s hard to understand how this incorrect “minhag” could have possibly become wide spread. R. Yissachar Dov Eilenburg[4] (the author of Beer Sheva on the ) suggested that this mistake became widespread due to incorrect understanding of ourRashi . However I find it strange if the previous minhag was to affix a Mezuzah on every doorpost, how would it change in many countries simply because they misunderstood the Rashi’s commentary[5]. As for the correct understanding of Rashi, two possibilities were offered: either Rashi is saying that we don’t have to affix two Mezuzot on each doorframe[6], or that Rashi is following the opinion of R. Meir that if an entrance has only one doorpost on the right, there is a need to affix Mezuzah (despite the lack of second doorpost[7]). As for Rashi’s actual drasha[8] we don’t see it in any known source in Hazal[9]. In general there was[10] some attempt to explain the custom of affixing only one Mezuzah based on the fact that many of the inside rooms in their houses were not clean enough, but this does not explain what people relied on when the house itself had more than one entrance[11]. However Rashi[12] on our Gemorah brings an interpretation according to which if a house has exactly two entrances, it needs only one Mezuzah on the more commonly used entrance, since the other entrance is batela (is unimportant) compared to the first one. Only if the house has more than two entrances then we don’t say that two entrances are batelim to the one commonly used entrance. Maybe then Rashi on the Chumash is following his shita and saying that a house (or room) with two entrances requires only one Mezuzah. Interestingly, in Yerushalmi[13] there is even a stronger statement that seems to imply that only one entrance per house requires a Mezuzah: בית שיש לו שני פתחים נותן ברגיל היו שניהן רגילין נותן בחזית היו שניהן חזית נותן על איזה מהן שירצה The simple meaning of Yerushlami seems to contradict the Talmud Bavli and imply that only the entrance that’s used more often needs the Mezuzah. If he uses both entrances equally, then the Mezuzah is affixed to the “stronger” entrance and is they are equally strong, one can affix the Mezuzah on either entrance. To conclude we seem to have found a possible explanation of Rashi according to the simple meaning of his words[14] and a possible justification for the old minhag in Europe[15]. Needless to say our words are only theoretical and Baruch Hashem that minhag has disappeared a long time ago and every Orthodox Jew today affixes a Mezuzah on every entrance.

[1] Apparently Rashi implies that Mezuzot is written without the second Vav and can be read as Mezuzat. Our scrolls written according the Mesorah, Rambam ( 2:6), Semag (Asin 22) and Minhat Shai have the first Vav between two Zain’s missing, but Leningrad scroll (used on Bar Ilan disk) in fact has the second Vav missing. It’s also possible that Rashi meant that as long as some Vav is missing we can “transfer” the missing Vav to the last position and thus read the word as Mezuzat. See also Minhat Shai, 12:7. Interestingly the famous statement of the GR”A that there are 64 different Tefilins one would need to put on to fulfil all opinions does not consider the various opinions about how to write various words like “mezuzot”, “totafot”, which would bring the numbers of different Tefillins to hundreds. [2] See for instance Menachot 34a. [3] In this article we only discuss if there is any justification for the custom of affixing one Mezuzah on one’s home. See however Semag (Asin 3) that there were some people in who did not affix Mezuzot at all, and see there in Asin 23 some weird “justification” they used for their “minhag”. [4] In his super-commentary on Rashi called Tzeda Lederch and his “Beer Maim Chaim” usually printed in the end of Beer Sheva. [5] To say nothing about the fact that Halacha is rarely learned from a Torah commentary as Rashi does not “pasken” there. [6] In Yalkut Shimoni on Mishley (remez 943) indeed there is an opinion that each of the doorposts requires two Mezuzot, but our Gemorah (Menachot 34a) does not hold like this opinion and does not even mention it (see also Shu”t Minchat Yitzchak 1:9). [7] Obviously the Biblical word Mezuzah means not the parchment but the pole itself, so one Mezuzah in Rashi means one doorframe. [8] Which Rabeinu Bahya quotes as words of Razal. [9] See however Mordachai (962) who brings in the name of Rif that R. Meir and Rabonan who argue about the above law apparently learn from the spelling of Mezuzot. It may be according to this girsa, not found in our Rif, R. Meir had no Vav and Rabonan had a Vav in the word “Mezuzot” in Devarim 6:9. The Talmud mentions that R. Meir was a scribe and it’s possible he had some especially accurate scrolls that were different from the more commonly used ones (his “Torah scroll” is mentioned in Midrashim, see for instance Rabbah 94:9). Our Gemora however only mentions the learning from “Mezuzot” with the Vav to support the shita of Rabonan (see also the first Tosafot on 34a). [10] See Maharil, Minhagim, Laws of Mezuzah, 1 and Tshuvot 94 . In practice the Maharil and Rema did not accept these explanations. [11] See also Shu”t Divrey Yatziv Yore Deah 191 who proposes that maybe only the Mezuzah on the outside doorpost is a Biblical command, but the question of a house with two entrances still remains. [12] Menachot 33a starting with words Holech Achar Haragil and 34a starting with words Af Al Gav Deragil Beechad. [13] The end of Megila, 34a (see however second perek of Tractate Mezuzah, in Vilna Shas it’s printed at the end of the volume with Avoda Zara). Even if our interpretation off the Yerushalmi is correct, if the house has many rooms, it would seem to need a Mezuzah for each one even according to Yerushalmi. [14] In Sefer Zechor Leavraham on Rashi in Likutim in the back the author also interprets Rashi to mean only one Mezuza is needed. He proposes that Rashi quotes a lost similar to the one preserved in Yalkut Shimoni I quoted above. According to the author the dispute there is not whether the Mezuzah is placed on both sides of one entrance but whether there is a need for a Mezuzah on every entrance of the house. [15] It’s known that many European communities started in Italy, where Yerushalmi was often followed to a greater extent than Bavli and therefore it’s possible that the earliest settlers in France and Germany were told only to affix one Mezuzah on the main entrance leading to the street. Regarding inside rooms, maybe they did not have any since simple houses had only one room in those times or maybe they relied on some of the weak reasons mentioned in Maharil (who rejects them) but regarding the outside doors if there are only two they may have followed Rashi and if some of their houses had more than two entrances they may have followed Yerushalmi or some other lost opinion (partially preserved in the Yalkut Shimoni). The Seven Nations of

THE SEVEN NATIONS OF CANAAN[1] By Reuven Kimelman This study deals with the war and the seven Canaanite nations.[2] It complements my previous post on of March 13, 2014, “The Ethics of the Case of Amalek: An Alternative Reading of the Biblical Data and the Jewish Tradition. “The popular conception in both cases is that the Bible demands their extermination thereby providing a precedent for genocide.[3] The popular reading of the Canaanites filters it through the prism of Deuteronomy. The popular reading of Amalek filters the Torah material through the prism of Saul’s battle against Amalek in the Book of . In actuality, the biblical data is much more ambiguous making the most destructive comments the exception not the rule as will be evident from a systematic analysis of the Canaanite material in the Bible as was previously done with Amalek. This post will deal with the following seven questions with regard to the nations of Canaan: a). What are the different biblical approaches to the native nations of Canaan? b). According to the Bible, what actually happened to them? c). What is the evidence that the Bible is sensitive to the moral issues involved? d). How has the Jewish tradition removed the category of the seven nations from its ethical agenda? e). What is the role of the doctrine of repentance? f). What is the relevance of the “Sennacherib principle”? g). How relevant is the category “holy war”? With regard to the extermination of the seven nations of Canaan,[4] sometimes called Canaanites sometimes Amorites, the biblical record is also not of one cloth. The clarification of their status in the Bible requires a systematic treatment of all the data book by book. Genesis (12:6, 15:16) is aware that the Canaanites were in the land when arrived and would remain for generations. From Genesis 38 and the end of The Book of Ruth we learn that from the progeny of Abraham’s great grandson Judah and the Canaanite Tamar will issue King . Also Simeon’s son is identified as “Saul the son of a Cannanite women” (Genesis 46:10, Exodus 6:15) without comment. Exodus (23)’s position on the elimination of the Canaanites (v. 23) is a gradual dispossession by God, not by the :[5] 27 I will send forth My terror before you, and I will throw into panic all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn tail before you. 28 I will send a plague ahead of you, and it shall drive out before you the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites.[6] 29 I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply to your hurt. 30 I will drive them out before you little by little, until you have increased and possess the land. Leviticus (18) refers to God casting out of the nations: 24 Do not defile yourselves in any of those ways, for it is by such that the nations that I am casting out before you defiled themselves. 25 Thus the land became defiled; and I called it to account for its iniquity, and the land spewed out its inhabitants. Here there is a coordination between God and land. The land spews out its inhabitants for defiling it and God expels them. Numbers (33) refers to the Israelites deporting the local inhabitants: 51 Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 you shall dispossess all the inhabitants of the land; you shall destroy all their figured objects; you shall destroy all their molten images, and you shall demolish all their cult places. 53 And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the land to you to possess. It is clear that the issue here is not ethnic but religio-cultural. The fear is that Israel will be ensnared, especially through intermarriage, by the local moral and cultic practices . Exodus 34 emphasizes the religious factor: 12b Beware of making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land against which you are advancing, lest they be a snare in your midst. 13 Rather you must tear down their altars, smash their pillars,and cut down their sacred posts; 14 for you must not worship any other God, because the Lord, whose name is Impassioned, is an impassioned God. 15 You must not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for they will lust after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and invite you, and you will eat of their sacrifices. 16 And when you take wives from among their daughters for your sons, their daughters will lust after their gods and will cause your sons to lust after their gods.[7] Leviticus 18 emphasizes the moral factor: 26 But you must keep My laws and My rules, and you must not do any of those abhorrent things, neither the citizen nor the stranger who resides among you; 27 for all those abhorrent things were done by the people who were in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 So let not the land spew you out for defiling it as it spewed out the nation that came before you. 29 All who do any of those abhorrent things—such persons shall be cut off from their people. 30 You shall keep My charge not to engage in any of the abhorrent practices that were carried on before you, and you shall not defile yourselves through them: I the Lord am your God. Numbers 33 warns Israel against assimilating Canaanite norms lest they share their fate of expulsion. “55 But if you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land, those whom you allow to remain shall be stings in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land in which you live; 56 so that I will do to you what I planned to do to them.”

The exception is Deuteronomy 7 which demands total destruction: 1 When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are about to enter and possess, and He dislodges many nations before you— the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations much larger than you—2and the Lord your God delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must doom them to destruction: grant them no terms and give them no quarter. Even according to Deuteronomy the fear is not of their DNA but moral assimilation, for it goes on to say: “Lest they lead you into doing all the abhorrent things that they have done for their gods and you stand guilty before the Lord your God” (20:18). For Deuteronomy (12:31; 18:9-12), the abhorrent things include child sacrifice. Strangely, Deuteronomy continues with a provision against intermarriage: 3 You shall not intermarry with them: do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. 4 For they will turn your children away from Me to worship other gods, and the Lord’s anger will blaze forth against you and He will promptly wipe you out. 5 Instead, this is what you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred posts, and consign their images to the fire.

Apprehension about intermarriage or coming to terms with an eradicated people is strange unless Deuteronomy is aware that its demand to doom them will not be (or was not) implemented. And, in fact, as we shall see the evidence from Judges 3 is that they did intermarry. Alternatively, ḥerem does not entail the elimination of the Canaanites only their isolation, that is, they are to be quarantined. This understanding follows its Semitic cognates where it means to separate, to set aside.[8] The goal is to exclude any intercourse with them. Thus verse 5 only refers to the elimination of their objects of worship not their persons. This opens the possibility that “What we have is a retention of the … traditional language of ḥerem, but a shift in the direction of its acquiring significance as a metaphor … for religious fidelity.”[9] Even stranger is the description of the confrontation with Sihon king of the Amorites. Within the context of Deuteronomy, one would expect an outright attack when God says to : “See, I give into your power Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin the occupation: engage him in battle” (2:24). Instead, what does Moses do: 26 Then I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to King Sihon of Heshbon with an offer of peace, as follows, 27 “Let me pass through your country. I will keep strictly to the highway, turning off neither to the right nor to the left. 28 What food I eat you will supply for money, and what water I drink you will furnish for money; just let me pass through.” Sihon rejects the offer and attacks Israel. They are destroyed only in the counterattack. If there is no evidence for the expulsion of the Canaanites, whence the position of Deuteronomy 7:1-2? It has been speculated that Deuteronomy took “both the expulsion law of Exodus 23:20-33, directed against the inhabitants of Canaan, and the ḥerem (total destruction) law of Exodus 22:19 (“Whoever sacrifices to a God other than the Lord shall be proscribed), directed against the individual Israelite, and fused them into a new law that appliesḥerem to all idolaters, Israelites and non-Israelites alike.”[10] In other words, the ḥerem is not against Canaanites as Canaanites, but idolaters as idolaters. Thus Deuteronomy (13:13-19) imposes the very punishment on Israelite idolaters. The choice of the wordḥerem also promotes a sense of quid pro quod, for, according to Numbers 14:45, the Canaanites and the Amalekites pummeled Israel to Hormah a word which could simply designate a place or also serve as a toponym since ad haḥormah could be rendered “to utter destruction.”[11] The point of the paronomasia is that the Canaanites and the Amalekites got as they gave. In any case, except for some sources in (6:21 and chapters 10-11) the later biblical sources follow the earlier biblical books from Exodus to Numbers rather than Deuteronomy. Even the Joshua material raises some questions. According to Joshua 10:33, Joshua totally destroyed the people of Gezer. Yet Joshua 16:10 (like :29) states: “They failed to dispossess the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; so the Canaanites remained in the midst of Ephraim, as is still the case. But they had to perform forced labor.” In actuality, they stayed there until the reign of only to be killed off by Pharaoh as noted in I Kings 9:16. Apparently, once the people were defanged by having its army destroyed, they were given quarter.[12] As a subject nation they apparently present no religious threat. In fact, save for the peculiar case of Judges 3:5, the surrounding nations, not the Canaanites, are blamed for Israelite apostasy.[13] In fact, according to Joshua 8:29 and 10:27, the bodies of Canaanite kings hung by Joshua were buried by nightfall just as Deuteronomy 21:23 enjoins. Apparently, Human dignity is inalienable even for Canaanite kings. The triumphal picture of Joshua is undermined by the facts on the ground. For example, Joshua 11:12 gives the impression that Joshua wiped out all the cities in the area of Hazor and burned them to the ground. Yet the next verse says: “However, all those towns that are still standing on their mounds were not burned down by Israel; it was Hazor alone that Joshua burned down.” In fact, only two other cities were burned — Jericho and Ai. Similarly, Joshua 11:23 claims: “Thus Joshua conquered the whole country, just as the Lord had promised Moses,” whereas 13:1 concedes “and very much of the land still remains to be taken possession of.” Even where Israel spread out much of the native population was allowed to remain in their midst, as it says later in the same chapter: “the Israelites failed to dispossess the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and Geshur and Maacath remain among Israel to this day” (13:13). The sparing of the Canaanite population was common. With regard to southern Israel, Joshua 15:63 says: “But the Judites could not dispossess the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Judites dwell with the Jebusites in Jerusalem to this day.” With regard to central Israel, Joshua 16:10 says: “However, they failed to dispossess the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; so the Canaanites remained in the midst of Ephraim, as is still the case. But they had to perform forced labor.” And with regard to northern Israel, Joshua 17:12-13 says: “The Manassites could not dispossess [the inhabitants of] these towns, and the Canaanites stubbornly remained in this region. When the Israelites became stronger, they imposed tribute on the Canaanites; but they did not dispossess them.” Judges 1:27-36 follows suit. It begins: 27 Manasseh did not dispossess [the inhabitants of] Beth-shean and its dependencies, or [of] Taanach and its dependencies, or the inhabitants of Dor and its dependencies, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its dependencies, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its dependencies. The Canaanites persisted in dwelling in this region. 28 And when Israel gained the upper hand, they subjected the Canaanites to forced labor; but they did not dispossess them. 29Nor did Ephraim dispossess the Canaanites who inhabited Gezer; so the Canaanites dwelt in their midst at Gezer… All these sources mention the failure to dispossess the Canaanites, despite the Israelites’ power to do so. No mention is made of any extermination.[14] Joshua 24:13 does mention the expulsion of two kings but without resorting to the sword and bow, a point reiterated in Psalm 44:5. Most remarkable is the story in Judges 4. There it is told that God punished the Israelites by handing them over to Yabin the king of Canaan and Sisera his general. In the divinely commanded revolt against them, God promised to deliver them into the hands of the Israelites not to wipe them out. Joshua concedes in his farewell address the failure of his policy. The most he can hope is that “The Lord your God Himself will thrust them out on your account and drive them out to make way for you” (Joshua 23:5). In the meantime, they are exhorted to be resolute not “to intermingle with these nations that are left among you. Do not utter the names of their gods or swear by them” (23:7). He them mentions the apprehension of Deuteronomy of intermarriage: “For should you turn away and attach yourselves to the remnant of those nations — to those that are left among you–and intermarry with the you joining them and they joining you, know for certain that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out before you; they shall become a snare and a trap for you” (23:12-13). In fact, Judges 3 states that they did intermarry: “The Israelites settled among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites; they took their daughters to wife and gave their own daughters to their sons, and they worshiped their gods” (5-6). Intermarriage was likely a factor in the absence of biblical or extra biblical evidence for Israel’s expulsion of the Canaanites. The archaeological record confirms that Israel primarily settled in previously unoccupied territory in the central highlands rather than rebuilt towns on destroyed Canaanite cites. In Judges 2, they are threatened with the consequences of not dispossessing them: 1 An angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, “I brought you up from Egypt and I took you into the land which I had promised on oath to your fathers. And I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. 2 And you, for your part, must make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you must tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed Me—look what you have done! 3 Therefore, I have resolved not to drive them out before you; they shall become your oppressors, and their gods shall be a snare to you.” The Israelites not only did not drive out the inhabitants, they concluded treaties with them. Their expulsion by God was contingent upon Israel’s refusal to conclude a treaty with them. Neither took place. Even at the height of ancient Israelite power under the reign of Solomon there was no move to do away with them only to subject them to forced labor, as I Kings 9 (= 2 Chronicles 8:7-8) states: 20All the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were not of the Israelite stock—21those of their descendants who remained in the land and whom the Israelites were not able to annihilate—of these Solomon made a slave force, as is still the case.[15] Nonetheless, Uriah the Hittite not only marries Bathsheba but also serves as a trusted officer in David’s army. Psalm 106 laments the total failure of the policy. According to it, everything that Joshua warned against, they did and more. Following Deuteronomy 12:31, it also provides the moral basis by documenting the abhorrent behavior of the Canaanites to their own children: 34 They did not destroy the nations as the Lord had commanded them, 35 but mingled with the nations and learned their ways. 36 They worshiped their idols, which became a snare for them. 37 Their own sons and daughters they sacrificed to demons. 38 They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; so the land was polluted with bloodguilt. 39 Thus they became defiled by their acts, debauched through their deeds.[16] Verses 34-35 attest to the non implementation of the policy of Deuteronomy 20:17-18. Remarkably, the explain the non implementation through the conversion of the nations: R. Samuel bar Nahman began his discourse with the verse: “But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the Land before you, then shall those that remain of them be as thorns in your eyes and as pricks in your sides” (Numbers 33:55). The Holy One reminded Israel: I said to you, “You shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite” (Deuteronomy 20:17). But you did not do so; for “Rahab the harlot, and her father’s household, and all that she had, did Joshua save alive” (Joshua 6:25). Behold, Jeremiah will spring from the children’s children of Rahab the harlot and will thrust such words into you as will be thorns in your eyes and pricks in your sides.[17] Irony of ironies, the thorny and prickly issue is no longer the continuity of pagan practices but the pointed prophetic barbs from the progeny of converts. The tendency to blunt the impact of the seven-nations policy of Deuteronomy is also furthered by two other comments in rabbinic literature. The first contends that Joshua sent three missives before embarking on the conquest of the . The first said: “whoever wants to leave — may leave;” the second: “whoever wants to make peace — make peace;” and the third: “whoever wants to make war — make war.”[18] War was only conducted against those who opted for war.[19]

That war was not waged against those who did not opt for war may be supported by the following verse in Joshua: When all the kings of the Amorites on the western side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites near the Sea, heard how the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the sake of the Israelites until they crossed over, they lost heart, and no spirit was left in them because of the Israelites (5:1). No war no killing. Similarly, Joshua 9 mentions that all six nations of Cannaan mobilized for war against Israel as opposed to the Gibeonites who made peace with them. Even though the peace was made under false pretenses, Joshua in chapter 10 honored his “treaty to guarantee their lives” (9:15) by rescuing them from the attack of the five Amorite kings. The treaty here entails security arrangements in exchange for submission. Also in the beginning of chapter 11 Joshua defeats those nations that had mobilized for war against him. None of these accounts attribute their destruction to their religious depravity, only to their initiation of attack on Israel.[20] The other rabbinic comment rules that by transplanting and mingling the populations he conquered, the Assyrian king Sennacherib dissolved the national identity of the Canaanite nations in ancient times.[21] Accordingly, ruled that all trace of them has vanished.[22] Harav Abraham Kook, former chief , attained the same goal by limiting the commandment to expel the Canaanites to the generation of Joshua. He writes: If it were an absolute duty for every Jewish king to conquer all the seven nations, how would David have refrained from doing so? Therefore, in my humble opinion, the original duty rested only on Joshua and his generation. Afterwards, it was only a commandment to realize the inheritance of the land promised to the .[23] Moreover, non-Canaanites captured along with a majority of Canaanites were to be spared just as Canaanites caught with a majority of non-Canaanites were to be spared[24] reducing possibilities of any wholesale slaughter. In fact one commentator contends that the destruction of a city is predicated upon the unanimous opposition to submission to the Israelites for “we cannot impose a death penalty on them (women and children) because of the sin of their fathers and the guilt of their husbands.”[25] Finally, the Maimonidean ruling that all war must be preceded by an overture of peace and that only the nations of Canaan that maintained their abhorrent ways are to be doomed reduced the possibility of any war of total destruction.[26] His position is rooted in the repeated classical rabbinic comment to the verse “Lest they lead you into doing all the abhorrent things that they have done for their gods and you stand guilty before the Lord your God” (20:18) — “This teaches that if they repent they are not killed.”[27] The assumption is that the Canaanites got special attention not only because of their geography, but also because “they were enmeshed in idolatry more than all the nations of the world.”[28] Similarly, The Wisdom of Solomon notes that the Israelites did not wipe out the Canaanites “at once, but judging them gradually You gave them space for repentance” (12:10). The best biblical example of judging Canaanites by their behavior and not by their genes is the case of Rahab of Jericho. Since she acknowledged the God of Israel as “the God of heaven and earth” (Joshua 2:12) and threw her lot in with Israel, she and her household were not only spared but were welcomed “into the midst of Israel” (Joshua 6:25). Rabbinic tradition extended this welcome to marrying Joshua and becoming the progenitor of priests and prophets.[29] Moreover, based on the fact that “The young men . . . went in and brought out Rahab . . . and her brethren . . . all her kindred also” (Joshua 6:23), it was understood that her immediate relatives, and also their relatives totaling many hundreds were also spared.[30] The other salutary example is the Canaanite Tamar who not only trumped Judah morally (see Genesis 38:26), but, according to the genealogy at the end of the Book of Ruth, became the progenitress of King David. The other progenitress was Ruth the Moabite who is linked to Tamar in Ruth 4:12. That behavior or life-style trumps genes explains the permissibility of marrying the captured woman in Deuteronomy 21:10. Having left her previous ways she no longer presents a temptation of apostasy. Rabbinic tradition following suit specifically included a Canaanite as long as she had shed her idolatrous ways.[31] In the same vein, rabbinic tradition held that the descendants of the Canaanite general Sisera became Torah teachers in Jerusalem,[32] and that Abraham’s servant was removed from the category of Canaanite due to his loyalty to Abraham,[33] indeed, deemed his peer in piety,[34] worthy of entering Paradise alive.[35] In the light of the biblical doctrine of repentance (“For it is not My desire that anyone shall die—declares the Lord God. Repent, therefore, and live!” — Ezekiel 18:32), it is hard to contemplate an alternative. Such a doctrine does not sit well with the possibility of irredeemable evil. A lesson that Jonah had a hard time learning. According to The Book of Jonah, even Nineveh, the capital of the empire that brought ruin on the lost tribes of Israel and annihilated everything in its path (see 37:11), could avert destruction by engaging in repentance. Finally, the evidence that the issue was all along ethical and not ethnic lies in the fact that Abraham was prevented from taking possession of the land in his day “because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16), whereas his descendants were allowed to take possession because of the “wickedness of these nations” (Deuteronomy 9:4-5). The midrashic tradition followed the biblical categorization of groups through a combination of ethics and ethnicity. With regard to repentance, the Midrash pointed out that the Torah was given in the third month whose Zodiac symbol is twins to make the point that were ’s twin to repent and convert and study Torah God would accept him.[36] In fact, God looks forward “to the nations of the world repenting so that He might bring them nigh beneath His wings.”[37] Kindness is also a criterion for inclusion; its absence a criterion for exclusion. The Cannanite Rahab is allowed in for her act of her kindness.[38] Even Egyptians, according to Deuteronomy 23:8b-9, are accepted after three generations apparently for having initially extended kindness to Israel.[39] The case of the Moabite Ruth is exemplary. According to Deuteronomy 23:4-5, Moabites are not allowed into the Congregation of the Lord because of their lack of human decency and hospitality to Israel after the Exodus. In contrast, Ruth is accepted because of her decency and kindness to her Jewish mother-in-law.[40] Her example led to the wholesale exemption of women from the Deuteronomic prohibition.[41] She in fact is a latter day Tamar. Both Tamar and Ruth are erstwhile barren foreign widows of Israelite men who insinuate themselves into the messianic line through linking up with prominent progenitors of David through a combination of feminine wiles and moral rectitude. In the same vein, Eliezer’s criterion, according to Genesis 24:14, for incorporating a woman into Abraham’s family was precisely kindness and hospitality to strangers. In fact, the midrash lists ten biblical women of Egyptian, Midianite, Cannanite, Moabite, and Kenite origin whose kindness accounts for their acceptance as converts.[42] As noted, kindness qualifies one for inclusion as its absence qualifies one for exclusion, as the Talmud says, “Anyone who has mercy on people, is presumed to be of our father Abraham’s seed; and anyone who does not have mercy on people, is presumed not to be of our father Abraham’s seed.”[43] Maimonides follows suit by defining charitableness as “the sign of the righteous person, the seed of Abraham our Father. Indeed if someone is cruel and does not show mercy, there are grounds to suspect his or her lineage.”[44] Obviously, Abrahamic lineage has also an ethical DNA marker.

In sum, there are basically four strategies for removing the seven-nations ruling from the post-biblical ethical agenda and vitiating it as a precedent for contemporary practice:

1. The recognition that the mandate for their extermination was a minority position in the Bible, significantly limited to Deuteronomy 7:1-2, and was only thought to be partially implemented in parts of the . 2. The realization that since the threat was posed by their religion and ethics a change in them brings about a change in their status. 3. The limitation of the jurisdiction of the ruling to the conditions of ancient Canaan at the time of Joshua. 4. The application of the “Sennacherib principle” that holds that under the Assyrian empire conquered peoples lost their national identity. These four stratagems of the biblical and post-biblical exegetical tradition mitigate if not undermind the ruling regarding the destruction of the Canaanites. In both cases, ethics end up trumping genealogy. This understanding helps account for the absence of any drive to exterminate or dispossess the seven nations even when Israel was at the height of its power under the reigns of David and Solomon. Postscript According to John Yoder’s When War Is Unjust, holy wars differ from just wars in the following five respects: 1. holy wars are validated by a transcendent cause; 2. the cause is known by revelation; 3. the adversary has no rights; 4. the criterion of last resort need not apply; 5. it need not be “winnable.”[45] This study illustrates how the antidotes to 3-5 were woven into the ethical fabric of the biblical wars of destruction. In most cases the resort to war even against the Canaanites was only pursuant to overtures of peace or in counterattack, and even the chances of success against Midian were weighed by the Urim and Tumim. It is therefore not surprising that the expression “holy war” is absent not only from the Bible but also from the subsequent Jewish ethical and military lexicon.[46] [1] For a survey of alternative ways of dealing with the history of the problem outside of Jewish exegesis, see Ed Noort, “War in the Book of Joshua: History or Theology,” Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook: Visions of Peace and Tales of War (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), pp. 69-86, at 72-76. For an assemblage of material on ḥerem, see P. D. Stern, The Biblical Herem: A Window on Israel’s Religious Experience, Brown Judaic Studies 211; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991. [2] For the whole subject of war in the Bible, see Charles Trimm, “Recent Research on Warfare in the Old Testament,” Currents in Biblical Research 10 (2012), pp. 171-216. [3] On the practice of genocide in antiquity, see ,Remember “ Amalek!”: Vengeance, Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and , (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2004), pp. 2-6. [4] Sources differ on the number. For seven, see Deuteronomy 7:1, Joshua 3:10, 24:11. For six, see Exodus 3:8, 17; 23:23, 33:2, etc. For five, see Exodus 13:5, 1 Kings 9:20, 2 Chronicles 8:7. For three, see Exodus 23:28. The most comprehensive list is Genesis 15:19-20 with ten. [5] The Septuagint and Pseudo–Jonathan have, in Exodus 33:2, the angel expelling them. [6] This is apparently behind the historical recollection of Psalm 4:2. [7] See 23:32, 33:2. [8] See Baruch Levine, Numbers 1-20 (AB 4a) (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 446f.,with Leviticus 27:28, and Ezekiel 44:29. [9] R. W. L. Moberly, “Toward an Interpretation of the Shema,” ed. Christopher Seitz and Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 124-144, at 136. For an expansion of this metaphor thesis, see Nathan MacDonald, Deuteronomy and the Meaning of “Monotheism”, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), pp. 108-123. [10] Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), p. 429; see idem, Leviticus (AB 3) ( New York: Doubleday, 1991-2001) 3:2419. Alternatively, see Ziony Zevit, “The Search for Violence in Israelite Culture and in the Bible,” eds. David Bernat and Jonathen Klawans, Religion and Violence: The Biblical Heritage (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), pp. 16-37, at 25, and 31. [11] Baruch Levine, Numbers 1-20 (AB 4a) (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 372; see Targum Jonathan, ad loc. Similarly, the last word of Numbers 21:3 can be rendered as Hormah or “Destruction;” see Milgrom, ibid., Numbers, pp.172, 456-48. According to Judges1:17, Hormah was destroyed later; see Tigay, Deuteronomy, p. 348, n. 121. [12] See Yehezkel Kaufmann, Sefer Yehoshua (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer,1959), pp. 146-47. [13] See Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (New York: Schocken,1960), p. 248. With regard to Judges 3:5-6, see ibid., n. 4. 14] Judges 11:23, Psalm 44:3, 80:8b, 2 Chronicles 20:7, Fourth Ezra 1:21, and The Testament of Moses 12:8 mention only dispossession. [15] For the presence of Canaanites in King David’s administration, see the chapter “King David’s Scribe and High Officialdom of the United Monarchy of Israel,” in Benjamin Mazar, The Early Biblical Period: Historical Studies, eds. Shmuel Aḥituv and Baruch A. Levine, Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1986. [16] The prophetic harangue against Canaanite practices focused on their abhorrent behavior to their children; see Isaiah 57:5; Jeremiah 2:23; 3:24; 7:31-32; 19:5-6, 11; 32:35; Ezekiel 16:20-21; 20:25-26, 30-31; 23:36-39. According to Deuteronomy (12:31; 18:9-12) such practices include child sacrifice. The Wisdom of Solomon (12:5-6) extends this to slaughtering children and feasting on human flesh and blood. [17] Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana 13.5, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:228f. [18] Leviticus Rabbah 17.6; see Deuteronomy Rabbah 5.13-14; P. T. Sheviit 6.1, 36c; and Maimonides, “Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 6.5. According to the midrash, the Girgashites took up Joshua’s offer and settled in Africa. Accordingly, there is no mention of their defeat in the conquest narratives of Joshua 6-12, albeit they are listed in Joshua 24:11 among the seven nations handed over to Joshua. [19] See Sifrei Deuteronomy 200, ed. Finkelstein, p. 237, l. 10. This refers to the thirty-one kings of Canaan whose defeat is narrated in Joshua 12 [20] See Lawson Stone, “Ethical and Apologetic Tendencies in the Redaction of the Book of Joshua,” CBQ 53 (1991), pp. 25-36. [21] See M. Yadayim 4:4, T. Yadayim 2:17 (ed. Zuckermandel, p. 683), T. Qiddushin 5:4 B. T. Berakhot 28a, B. T. Yoma 54a, with Oṣar Ha–Posqim, Even Ha–Ezer 4. [22] , “Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 5.4; “Laws of Prohibited Relations,” 12.25. See idem, The Book of Commandments #187: “They [Amalek(?) and the seven nations] were finished off and destroyed in the days of David. Those that survived were dispersed and assimilated into the nations so that no root of them remained.” [23] Abraham Kook, Tov Ro’i (Jerusalem 5760), p. 22. [24] See Sifrei Deuteronomy 200, ed. Finkelstein, p. 237, with n. 10; and Babad, Minḥat Ḥinukh to Sefer Ha-Ḥinukh, #527, [25] Yaakov Zvi Mecklenburg, Ha–Ktav Ve–Ha–Kabbalah (New York: Om Publishing Co., 1946), p. 52a, to Deuteronomy 20:16. [26] “Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 6.1,4; see Leḥem ad loc.; and Shlomoh Goren, Meishiv Milḥamah, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Ha-idrah Rabbah, 1986), 3:361-366. [27] Sifrei Deuteronomy 202, T. Sotah 8:7, B. T. Sotah 35b with Tosafot, s.v., lerabot [28] See Sifrei Deuteronomy 60, ed. Finkelstein, p. 125, lines 11-12, with n. 12. [29]See Sifrei Numbers 78, ed. Horovitz, p. 74; Sifrei Zutta, ed. Horovitz, p. 263; Midrash Ruth Rabbah 2.1; Pesikta De–Rav Kahana 13. 5, 12, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:228, 237; and Yalqut Shimoni, Joshua 9, Nevi’im Rishonim, ed. Heyman-Shiloni (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1999), p. 16f., n. 4f., along with Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary Haftarot (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002), p. 232, n. 11; p. 482, n. 11. [30] See Ruth Rabbah 2:1 and parallels. [31] Sifrei Deuteronomy 211; see B. T. Sotah 35b and Tosafot, s.v. lerabot. [32] B. T. Gittin 57b, B. T. Sanhedrin 96b, Midrash 1.18. Sennacherib got a similar comeuppance (ibid.), while the Moabite king became the progenitor of Ruth; see B. T. Sotah 47a with parallels. [33] See 60.7, p. 647; and Leviticus Rabbah 17.5, p. 383. [34] Beit Ha–Midrash, ed. Jellinek, 6:79. [35] Derekh Erets Zutta 1.18, ed. Sperber, p. 20. [36] Pesikta De–Rav Kahana 12.20, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:218. [37] Song Rabbah 5.16.5, and Numbers Rabbah 1.10 (middle). [38] See Joshua 2:2 with Pesikta De–Rav Kahana 13.4, ed. Mandelbaum, 1:227. [39] See Rashi ad loc., and Philo, On the Virtues, 106-108. [40] See Ruth 2:11-12, 3:10. R. Zeira (Ruth Rabbah 2:14) attributes the composition of The Book of Ruth to its acts of kindness. [41] B. T. Yevamot 77a; See M. Yevamot 9:3; Sifrei Deuteronomy 249, ed. Finkelstein, p. 277, and parallels. [42] See Yalqut Shimoni, Joshua 9, Nevi’im Rishonim, ed. Heyman-Shiloni (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1999), p. 17, line 15. [43] B. T. Beṣah 32b. [44] Mishneh Torah, “Gifts to the Needy,” 10:1-2. [45] John Howard Yoder, When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-war thinking (Minneapolis: Ausburg Pub. House, 1984), p. 26f. [46] This point is even conceded by Reuven Firestone in the Preface to his book titled Holy War in , New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. The biblical “wars of God” (Numbers 21:14; I Samuel 17:47, 18:17, 25:28) are simply battles fought by the people of God. Although Maimonides (“Laws of Kings and Their Wars,” 4:10) does take them as wars fought for God in the sense that they are fought to promote God’s unity or to sanctify the Name, he does not categorize them as commanded wars; see Gerald Blidstein, “Holy War in Maimonidean Law,” in Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Issues, ed. Joel Kraemer (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1991), pp. 209-220, esp. 220, n. 33. Nonetheless, there is no case in the Bible of a war for spreading the Israelite religion to foreigners or compelling then to accept it nor is there an example of wars of conquest being dubbed holy even when booty is dedicated to God. For the insinuation of “holy war” into Protestant, primarily German, biblical scholarship based on the model of the Islamic Jihad, see Ben Ollenburger’s Introduction to Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1991), pp. 1-33; and John Wood, Perspectives on War in the Bible (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998), p. 16 with note.

ArtScroll and More

ArtScroll and More

Marc B. Shapiro

In an earlier post here I discussed ArtScroll’s use of a censored talmudic text.[1] This happens quite a bit and it is not always clear if the translators were aware that they were working with an inauthentic text. However, for many passages there is no question that they realize that what they are translating is not authentic but was added because of fear of non-Jewish reaction. Here is a chart someone drew up showing how the various new Talmud editions deal with the matter of

censorship. It is significant that even in the Hebrew ArtScroll the text that is used is censored. ArtScroll has never publicly explained why they have adopted this approach, but I think it is obvious that unlike other publishers, ArtScroll is still worried about creating anti-Semitism and thus continues to print a censored Talmud. While I think everyone agrees that the ArtScroll Talmud translation is a masterpiece, opinions will obviously differ as to whether ArtScroll made a mistake in not restoring the Talmud to its pre-censorship state.[2]

ArtScroll’s approach is different than that of other publishers who are very happy that they can now include the complete uncensored words of the Talmud. Ezra Chwat’s words express the feeling of every publisher other than ArtScroll.[3]

אין צורך להדגיש את החשיבות של הנגשת הסוגיה המקורית לעשרות אלפי הלומדים את הגמרא כפי שיצא מפיהם הקדושים של האמוראים, ושלא יסתפקו ב”גירסא” שאושרה על ידי הכנסייה.

Yet R. Leopold Greenwald had the exact opposite approach, and he was upset when he heard that a new Talmud was being printed that reinserted the censored texts. His words reflect the approach later adopted by ArtScroll [4]:

ומה מאד דאבה נפשנו בראותנו, כי מכריזים גם עכשיו על “המציאה הגדולה”, כי בירושלים מדפיסים כעת תלמוד עם כל ההשמטות שהשמיטו הצנזורים במשך מאות שנים. ועל זה אנו קוראים: שקול טובתך! בני ישראל לא ישבעו עונג מהטובה הזאת, לא ספרותנו ולא חכמתנו יתעשרו מהשמטות הללו, לא בזמננו ולא בהדורות שאחרינו. כבר שבענו צרות ומכאובות. ולהיות בפי כל מחבל בודאי אסון הוא. איפוא הם חכמי ירושלים? האם אינם רואים כי מזה לא תושע יהודה וכי צוררי ישראל ישיגו חומר מסוכן חדש?

For those who are unaware of the details, let me just mention that I am not referring to a word here or there that was censored and has not been restored by ArtScroll. Sanhedrin 43a has a number of lines dealing with the execution of Jesus and his disciples. While the entire section is found in Soncino (in translation), Steinsaltz, Wagshal and Oz ve-Hadar, it is not to be found in ArtScroll. Both the English and Hebrew editions of ArtScroll tell the reader that a section has been deleted from the Vilna Shas. However, in Sanhedrin 67a, where another section has been deleted and is found in the other editions just mentioned, ArtScroll does not inform the reader of the deletion. An allusion to the Sanhedrin 67a text is found in Va-Avo ha-Yom el ha-Ayin, attributed to R. Jonathan Eybeschuetz. This explosive text, which remained in manuscript for almost three hundred years, has just appeared in print, edited by Pawel Maciejko.[5] Va-Avo ha-Yom el ha-Ayin is very important to understanding the controversy over R. Eybeschuetz. (I hope that the manuscript Gahalei Esh, a treasure trove of documents dealing with eighteenth-century Sabbatianism, will also soon appear in a scholarly edition.) Quite apart from the radical theological notions found in Va-Avo ha-Yom el ha-Ayin, Maciejko describes the work as follows: “[I]t is blatantly pornographic (in fact, it is possibly the only truly pornographic text ever written in the rabbinic idiom.)”[6]

Speaking of pornography let me add the following. Not long ago I was visiting a certain synagogue for . When it came time for I took out the chumash that was near me. It happened to be the one published by R. Aryeh Kaplan. I actually am not a fan of this chumash for use in synagogue as its focus is entirely philological, and doesn’t deal with any of the issues that a typical person would want explained in reviewing the Torah portion. But this was what I had so I used It means .כומז :it. In Exodus 35:22 an unusual word appears some sort of golden bodily ornament. The word also appears in Numbers 31:50. According to the Exodus passage, this was one of the items the Israelites in the desert donated at the time of the building of the Tabernacle. The passage is Numbers refers to booty taken from the Midianites. Among the different is “a pornographic כומז interpretations Kaplan offers for sculpture.” This is quoted in the name of R. Alrabi (fifteenth century). I was quite shocked when I saw this and later saw that this interpretation is also quoted by R. Kasher in Torah Shelemah, which must have been where Kaplan saw it.

Alrabi wrote a commentary on Rashi which was published in Constantinople in 1525. In this work, on Exodus 35:22, Alrabi writes:

יראה לי שהוא תכשיט מצוייר צורת רחם האשה כדי שישתוקק רואהו לפועל המשגל והצנועות היו מביאות אותו עליהן בחדריהם לתת תשוקה לבעליהן העין רואה והלב חומד בו, והיה זה לכונה טובה לכן הותרו לשרת בקדש

What this means is that the item in question had a picture of a woman’s private parts. The Israelite women would have their husbands look at it in order to sexually excite them before they had marital relations. Since this pornographic viewing was for a good purpose, it was permitted for these items to be donated for use in building the Tabernacle. Here is the original text. Those who want to see the book in its entirety can view it here.

I find this explanation quite strange. I don’t know what led Alrabi to his original understanding and why he did not find any of the prior explanations compelling.

Incidentally, one of the other explanations cited by Kaplan is means a chastity belt. R. Ephraim ben כומז that Shimshon (12th-13th centuries) writes[7]: הכומז היה כלי כמנעול שקושרת האשה פתחה שלא יודעו להם שם אדם, כי אם בעלה לבד, והוא גודר הערוה.

This is how he understandsShabbat 64a which states Soncino translates this as .דפוס של בית הרחם means כומז that “cast of the womb” and ArtScroll translates it the exact same way. Koren translates “a mold [in the shape] of the womb.” In general I would say that disagreeing with these three translations is not a smart thing to do, yet in this case I must do just that. The translations I have cited are incorrect בית .as they do not reflect what the Talmud is saying in Shabbat 64a does not mean “womb” but rather something הרחם else. In order not to cause problems for those with internet filters I won’t spell it out completely, but I think the reader already understands.[8]

Rashi, Exodus 35:22, in summarizing the Talmud leaves no doubt in this matter:

כלי זהב הוא נתון כנגד אותו מקום לאשה

The very text in Shabbat 64a also lets us know that this matter has nothing to do with a “womb”, as immediately the Talmud דפוס של בית הרחם following the explanation of כאן מקום is an acronym of כומזexplains that the word here is the place of lewdness”, and there is no issue of“ זימה lewdness with the womb. ArtScroll itself, in its note on this latter passage, explains the matter well: “The place encased by this ornament is the part of the body which is the focus of lewdness.” In other words, in its commentary ArtScroll tells us that we are not dealing with the womb at all, but with another part of a woman’s anatomy. As such, it was a mistake for ArtScroll in its translation to adopt Soncino’s rendering .”as “cast of the womb כומז of

Rashi ,תכשיטין שבפנים .In his commentary to Berakhot 24a s.v is a chastity belt. From the context of כומז explains that a this talmudic passage we see that it also had ornamental significance:

כומז דפוס של בית הרחם שהיו עושין לבנותיהן ונוקבין כותלי בית הרחם כדרך שנוקבין את האזנים ותוחבין אותו כדי שלא יזדקקו להן זכרים In its commentary, ibid., ArtScroll summarizes Rashi as follows: “The kumaz was an ornament that covered a woman’s private parts.” is explained as being כומז Let me return to Shabbat 64a where .The Maharal,Gur Aryeh, Ex .כאן מקום זימה an acronym for 35:11, writes:

מפני שהוקשה להם לרז”ל שאין דרך לשון הקודש לקרא שם מיוחד לדברים שהם ערוה . . . כל דבר ערוה אין הכתוב נותן לו שם מיוחד . . . וכאן למה קרא כומז שם מיוחד אל הכלי הזה שהוא דפוס בית רחם, ולכך דרשו רז”ל שהוא כאן מקום זימה והשתא אין שם מיוחד לכלי זה רק כאילו נקרא כאן זימה.

I don’t understand the Maharal’s point. Just because there are no words in leshon ha-kodesh for sexual organs, why should we assume that there is no name for an item designed to cover a sexual organ?

Returning to the matter of “pornographic viewing” as described by Alrabi, I wonder if this could also have halakhic significance. I mention this only because of the controversy some years ago by an answer given by R. Shlomo Aviner that in a she’at ha-dehak (i.e., there are serious marital sexual issues) it would be permitted for a husband and wife to together view explicit pictures in a book. See here.

The entire conversation with R. Aviner was a set-up, and the anti-Aviner website used it to attack R. Aviner, and portray him as permitting viewing of pornography. Yet it is obvious that he was referring to sexual self-help books (which would have explicit pictures) since he refers to books found in Steimatzky. R. Moses Feinstein had earlier permitted a soon- to-be-married man to read sexual self-help books.[9] There is no indication in R. Feinstein’s responsum that he is also including the viewing of pictures in such books, but I do not know if he would regard this as a problem if the pictures are not of real people but are drawings.

Let us return to the subject of chastity belts. In the Wikipedia entry for “Chastity Belt” one finds the following:

Gregory the Great, Alcuin of York, Bernard of Clairvaux and Nicholas Gorranus all made passing references to ‘chastity belts’ within their exhortatory and public discourses, but meant this in a figurative or metaphorical sense within their historical context. The first detailed actual mention of what could be interpreted as “chastity belts” in the West is in Konrad Kyeser von Eichstätt’s Bellifortis (1405), which describes the military technology of the era. As we have seen, Rashi and R. Ephraim are not referring to chastity belts in a metaphorical sense. Thus, their mention of the item is of general historical significance, and Rashi (1040-1105) might be the earliest recorded example of someone referring to a chastity belt. Eric John Dingwall wrote an entire book on the subject of chastity belts entitledThe Girdle of Chastity (Scranton, 1959). On p. 14 he writes: “There can be little doubt that the idea of such a device, at least in a somewhat modified form, was current at least as early as the second half of the twelfth century.” He then cites the late twelfth-century Guigemar Epic, written by Marie de France, as a source of this. Yet Rashi’s mention of the chastity belt predates this source by around a century.

See also here where as part of a museum exhibition on chastity belts it states:

Until the 12th century, there are no textual memories related to chastity belts at all (not even any allusions without actually using the term) where the reference is not in a theological or mythological context. This sentence is incorrect, for as we have seen Rashi referred to chastity belts many decades before Marie de France, who is also cited in the museum exhibition as the first one to refer to the item. What we have here is a good example where scholars make judgments based exclusively on their knowledge of medieval Latin, Romance and Germanic literature. Exposure to what appears in medieval Hebrew texts would have caused them to alter these judgments.

Returning to ArtScroll, here is an example where I believe that ArtScroll has printed something that they know is incorrect, but did so in the interest of good Jewish-Gentile relations. I think it is a noteworthy example as it has nothing to do with a censored text, but focuses on the explanation of the Talmud. Avodah Zarah 6a states that according to R. Yishmael it is forbidden to do business with idolaters because of Sunday. Rashi explains that this means that one can never do business with idolaters since one cannot do business with them three days before and three days after their holiday, and this includes the entire seven-day week.

It doesn’t take much imagination to realize what the Talmud is referring to by “Sunday”, and in the uncensored text it instead of יום הנוצרי or נוצרי, נוצרים actually has “Sunday”. Yet ArtScroll in its translation states that the Talmud is referring to “Babylonian pagans who observe a sun- worshiping festival every Sunday.” It is true that Meiri states as much.[10] Meiri also claims that when the Talmud ,ישו הנוצרי it does not mean followers of נוצרים uses the word but refers to the use of the term in Jeremiah 4:16, which While it [נבוכדנצר. [Meiri claims is derived from the word11 is true that R. David Kimhi also sees the word in Jeremiah it is Meiri alone who claims that ,נבוכדנצר as related to 4:16 .נוצרים this is also intended when the Talmud refers to

It is certainly appropriate that ArtScroll cited Meiri’s explanation in a note, but how is it that this is the only explanation cited, when other than Meiri everyone else has ?refers to Christians נוצרים assumed, with good reason, that This can only be an example of ArtScroll shading the truth for apologetic reasons. People can debate the appropriateness of this, but there can be no doubt that ArtScroll is not being frank in its presentation here.

In the ArtScroll Hebrew edition it also quotes Meiri and states the that Talmud is not referring to Christians. Yet unlike in the English edition, in the Hebrew ArtScroll there is a note which states: “See Rambam,Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim 9:4”. If you open up the Mishneh Torah what you find is that the Rambam states:

הנוצרים עובדי עבודה זרה הן ויום ראשון יום אידם הוא

In other words, by referring to theMishneh Torah after mentioning Meiri, ArtScroll is alerting readers to the fact that the Rambam does not agree with Meiri and believes that the passage in Avodah Zarah 6a indeed refers to Christians. Yet this is never spelled out in ArtScroll, and you need to take their suggestion to consult the Mishneh Torah in order to learn that not everyone agrees that when the Talmud mentions those who make Sunday their holiday that it is referring to Babylonian pagans. (In fact, as already mentioned, only Meiri advocates this position.) Does the average person who learns daf yomi realize this?

In case anyone has any doubts as to what I am saying, please note the following. After referring to Maimonides, the note in the Hebrew ArtScroll calls attention to the Venice edition of the Talmud with Rashi, and to Dikdukei Soferim. Again, only one who examines these sources will learn that they offer an interpretation at odds with Meiri. If you look at the Venice Talmud or Dikdukei Soferim (or even Steinsaltz) you will find that in Avodah Zarah 6a Rashi explains:

נוצרי, ההולך בטעותו של אותו איש שצוה להם לעשות להם יום איד בא’ בשבת

In other words, Rashi tells us, just like Maimonides, that it נוצרי יום when the Talmud refers to those who celebrate means the Christians who follow Jesus.I find it significant that even in the Hebrew edition ArtScroll feels the need to only allude to the explanation of Rashi and Maimonides, while presenting Meiri’s explanation as the standard understanding of the text. ArtScroll certainly knows that this is not the standard understanding, and ArtScroll itself cannot believe that Meiri’s understanding is what the Talmud really means. After all, every other medieval commentator agrees with Rashi and Maimonides. In this case, the only explanation is that ArtScroll is following a long apologetic tradition, which was based on fear of what the non- would say if they knew the true meaning of certain talmudic passages.

Another example of this tendency was called to my attention by R. Moshe Maimon. Ketubot 15a discusses the case of A killing B, when A actually intended to kill another person. In its discussion the Talmud refers to “Canaanites”, which in the current context simply means non-Jews. In fact, in all manuscripts and early printings what appears is not “Canaanites” but “goyim”.[12] “Canaanites” is simply a “correction” of the censor. Yet ArtScroll has a note explaining that “The Canaanites were the pagan people who lived in Eretz Yisrael before the Israelites entered the land.” The implication of this comment is that the halakhah stated in the Talmud was only applicable with the ancient Canaanites but not with regard to other non-Jews. This is false and ArtScroll knows it is false, but it is no different than the “note to reader” found in many seforim that all the halakhot about non-Jews only refer to the pagans in faraway places. In the latter case everyone knew (and knows) that these words are not to be taken seriously, but I would assume that the typical user of the ArtScroll English Talmud does not realize this. It is noteworthy that the ArtScroll Hebrew Talmud does not include the note about the Canaanites.[13]

In 1728, an era in which Jewish-Gentile relations were not the best, R. Jonathan Eybeschuetz printed Tractate Berakhot with many deletions, as this was the only way he was given permission to publish the volume. Here is the title page. The volume can be found at hebrewbooks.org here. True to form, R. Jacob Emden accused R. Eybeschuetz of being in league with the bishop of Prague and intent only on making money from his new printing.[14] There was also a lot of controversy about this edition, not only because of the many deletions but even more so because of the instances where the talmudic text was rewritten. While non-Jewish censorship has a long history, this latter practice, of Jews agreeing to rewrite sections of the talmudic text, was a new and more dangerous phenomenon. Other tractates were later printed, but R. Eybeschuetz had nothing to do with them, and in any event the controversy focused on Berakhot as the other tractates simply printed the censored text from the earlier Basel edition, but did not add anything new.[15]

In his recent outstanding study of this episode, which makes use of manuscript sources, Pawel Maciejko writes:

In both academic scholarship and Jewish collective memory, the best-known controversies concerning Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz (1690-1764) are those about his kabbalistic tract Va-avo ha-yom el ha-‘ayin . . . and about the allegedly Sabbatean amulets that he distributed to the members of the communities of Metz and Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbeck in the 1750s. However, during his early years, the most important controversy concerning Eibeschütz was not the dispute surrounding his suspected Sabbateanism and the heterodox writings attributed to him but rather the outrage engendered by his friendly relations with the local Catholic clergy and his alleged involvement in the publication of heavily censored editions of the Pentateuch, the Talmud, and the prayer book. In the eyes of many contemporaries, the damage caused by the appearance of these latter publications vastly overshadowed any harm stemming from the heretical views expressed in Eibeschütz’s kabbalistic works and amulets.[16]

Maciejko notes that R. Moses Hagiz was so outraged by R. Eybeschuetz’s Talmud that he asked other rabbis to issue a ruling that it be burnt!

Shortly after the publication of R. Eybeschuetz’s Talmud someone wrote a defense of it, explaining why it was necessary to print a censored Talmud.[17] Raphael Kirchheim, who published this document, cites another who states that its author was none other than R. Eybeschuetz, since the author refers to R. Abraham Broda as his teacher.[18] R. Broda had served as rosh yeshiva in Prague, and later rav of Metz and Frankfurt.

While Maciejko also accepts this view,[19] the reference to R. would appear to show ,מורי ורבי ,Broda as the author’s teacher that R. Eybeschuetz could not have written the letter, since he was not a student of R. Broda.

We have good information about R. Eybeschuetz’s life, but there still is a lot we don’t know. Even though R. Eybeschuetz is not recorded as R. Broda’s student in the standard biographies, one could claim that it is possible that he studied for a short time under him, and for some reason this fact was not known to the biographers.[20] Yet in this case we can indeed make the definitive statement that R. Eybeschuetz did not study with R. Broda since R. Eybeschuetz tells us this himself. Some thirty years after R. Broda’s death in 1717 his Eshel Avraham was published (Frankfurt, 1747). Here is the title page. Among those who provided an approbation was R. Eybeschuetz, who at that time was in Metz. His respect for R. Broda is great, but he leaves no doubt that he never studied with him:

ממש רובי חכמי ישראל בדור הזה השלימי’ המה שותי מימיו ואף אני אם לא זכיתי לאורו לחזות לרבי מקמא כי בבואי לפראג שנת תע”ל כבר חמק דודי ופנה הודו לכאן ק”ק מיץ היא העיר אשר כעת אני יושב בה בתוך עמי, מ”מ נפתולי נפתלתי עם גדולי תלמידיו הרבני’ וחכמי’ מובהקים ושלימים במדע אשר נשארו שם ושמעתי’ תמיד בבי מדרשי’ בדיבוק חברי’

Returning to the document published by Kirchheim, it describes the history of the banning of the Talmud in the years before R. Eybeschuetz printed his volume. Interestingly, it tells about the confiscation of Jewish books from the Jews of Prague, which were then handed over to the Jesuits to be examined for anything against Christianity. From other sources we know that the Jesuits burnt the copies of the Talmud they confiscated, and “[i]n the 10 years from 1715 to 1725, very few copies (according to some sources, none) of the Talmud existed in Bohemia.”[21]

This need for copies of the Talmud explains why R. Eybeschuetz had to take the step he did. The document also tells of the punishment of a man from Nikolsburg who was caught smuggling into the Prague ghetto. He was forced, in chains, to clean the streets for a year. The smuggled Talmuds were supposed to be burnt, but this was somehow prevented (probably with a good bribe).

The only way to print a Talmud in Prague was to remove everything the Jesuits viewed as offensive to Christianity. They also viewed certain aggadot as objectionable, such as the description of God wearing tefillin in Berakhot 6a, and these too had to be removed.[22] The document tells us that having the Church agree to publication of the Talmud, even with these restrictions, was regarded as a great achievement. It also tells us that all the important rabbis in Prague permitted the publication of the bowdlerized Talmud.[23]

וכאשר הגיעו לידינו רשימה אספנו להגאון מורנו ורבנו האב”ד ור”י נר”ו בצירוף כל חכמי רבינו [!] עירנו אשר ת”ל המה גדולים בחכמה ובמנין וטבעם יצא בכל ארץ לעיון במילין אם כשר ונאות לעשות כן אם לא ואחר הלנת דין פעמים ושלש ומשא ומתן עלתה הסכמה להדפיס מס’ ברכות הנודע הגהתן וסדר זרעים אשר לא יחסר בו דבר, אך ממסכת שבת והלאה לא עבר הסכמתן כי לא נודע עדיין טיב הגהות נוצרים בו אם מעט אם רב The document then quotes a statement issued by the scholars of Prague defending their decision, a statement that was only intended to be viewed by other learned Jews. In justifying their decision to publish a censored Talmud – since this was all they were permitted and it was a censored Talmud or nothing – we find the following very interesting passage:[24] ודאי שנכון הדבר לעשות לבלי כושל ועיכוב כלל כי ודאי שניתן הש”ס להצילו באחד מאיבריו ולא יהיה הש”ס חמור מג”ע וש”ד אשר ק”ל יהרג ואל יעבר קימו לן אם מיחדים על אחד ימסר להם ואל יהרגו וכ”ש הדבר בש”ס שבזמן שמיחדים לומר השמיטו דא מאתכם שיהא הנשאר לפליטה שישמיטו זאת ולא יצאו כולם לבית השריפה מבלי שריד באהלינו אהל תורה ובפרט כי חז”ל שיסדו התלמוד לא על זה יסדו להיותו בדפוס גלוי לכל עמים כי אם כתבוהו בכתיבה תמה ומסרו זאת לזרע אמונים להנחיל לבניהם אחריהם לחלקם ביעקב ולהפיץ בישראל. The last sentence is making the point that there are certain things in the Talmud that should not be published for all to see, as these are the sorts of things that could create great problems with non-Jews. The Prague scholars then state that it is actually a good thing to cut out certain passages from the Talmud. In other words, they are acknowledging that even without Christian demands, it would be best in internally censor certain passages so as to prevent problems from arising. This is exactly what ArtScroll is doing today. No one is forcing them to self-censor, but they see matters as the sages of Prague who wrote (emphasis added)[25]: וזה לערך ר’ שנה שהחל להתפשט ספרינו בדפוס לתקנות אחינו למען יהיו להם הספרים בנקל ומצוי, אמנם בדברים כאלו תקנתם קלקלתם שגורמים סכנה לכל ספריהם ומטילים איבת הנוצרים עלינו ודאי ראוים שדברים אלו יהיו חוזרים לאיתנם הראשון מבלי לחוקקם בעט ברזל ועופרת. They are not saying that the censored matters should be forgotten about. Rather, they should be only be passed on in a non-published form (“Torah she-Ba’al Peh”) to advanced students who study the Talmud; they should not be put down in print for all to see and thus create a Christian backlash. The sages of Prague make the same point about strange Aggadot that are not to be taken literally and can only be understood by a few, and which have become subject to Christian mockery. These When possible, the .להציל דברי חז”ל [too should be omitted[26 Prague sages state, one should not delete an entire passage but simply change certain words. In this way the sense of the passage is not changed for any learned person, but problematic words are removed thus helping to blunt anti-Semitic attacks:[27] ומכ”ש לשנות הלשון במילות ושמות נרדפים באופן שלא ישתנה הענין פשיטא שמותר The Prague sages then state that if necessary it is even permitted to alter (i.e., falsify) halakhic rulings that appear in the Talmud in order to prevent anti-Semitism (which obviously could lead to real danger). They note that R. Solomon Luria disagrees but that the accepted practice is not in accord with what he wrote, a point that was later made by R. Moses Feinstein:[28] דעת מהרש”ל להחמיר אף במקום סכנה. אמנם מעשים בכל יום שמהפכין הדין ומשנין מדרכי השלום בהפקעת הלואה וכדומה ולא שמענו פוצה פה לעולם וכן נראה היפוכו בדברי מהר”ם רבק”ש בש”ע ח”מ סי תכ”ה ודברים המה מועתקים בספרים רבים. It is interesting that the Prague sages quoted the famous words of R. Moses Rivkes in his commentary to Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 425:5, who responds to a particular anti- Gentile law as follows:

The Rabbis said this in relation to the pagans of their own times only, who worshipped stars and the constellations and did not believe in the Exodus or in creatio ex nihilo. But the people in whose shade we, the people of Israel, are exiled and amongst whom we are dispersed do in fact believe in creatio ex nihilo and in the Exodus and in the main principles of religion, and their whole aim and intent is to the Maker of heaven and earth, as the codifiers have written. . . . So far, then from our not being forbidden to save them, we are on the contrary obliged to pray for their welfare.[29]

Some, such as Jacob Katz,[30] have seen R. Rivkes’ words as reflecting a new tolerant approach. However, the sages of Prague, who were closer to the time R. Rivkes lived, saw his words as merely designed for non-Jewish eyes and not to be taken seriously by Jews. R. Rivkes’ comment would therefore be no different than the declarations found at the beginning of many seforim that all negative statements about non-Jews are only directed towards pagans but have nothing to do with the Christians of Europe who worship God and allow the Jews to dwell among them.

Unlike what has been described by the Prague sages, Maciejko does not view the “corrections” in R. Eybeschuetz’s Talmud as simply defensive. He writes: Eibeschütz believed that there was no final, fixed, and canonized text of the Talmud. . . . Eibeschütz put himself in the shoes of the ancient sages and saw himself not as expurgating but rather as creating the text of the Talmud.[31]

Maciejko further writes:

Eibeschütz seems to have been the only early modern Jewish author who believed that the talmudic sages needed to be edited for style. For themselves, such changes were only possible thanks to the editorial freedom Eibeschütz granted himself in his “Apology and Answer of the Rabbis Prague”: Eibeschütz considered the talmudic text open and unfinished and therefore felt free to “correct” it even in instances in which he experienced no external pressure from the church or from any other powerbrokers. As for the character of these changes, one thing can be said with certainty: most of them aimed to create a neater and simpler text of the Talmud, one that avoids intricate grammatical constructions or potentially misleading expressions.[32]

It is hard for me to accept that R. Eybeschuetz could have viewed himself as “updating” the Talmud. Yet Maciejko is correct that we are confronted with the fact that R. Eybeschuetz’s Talmud contains linguistic and stylistic changes that were not required by the censor. Unlike Maciejko, I would explain matters in the following way: Since the Talmud was already being published in a censored fashion, with numerous passages deleted or rewritten, R. Eybeschuetz saw no reason not to make other changes that would create a more user- friendly text. However, this has nothing to do with the talmudic text being “open and unfinished” as Maciejko puts it. It wasn’t that he was improving on the original Talmud or seeking to replace it, but since the Talmud he was publishing was already “damaged”, as it were, he did not see a problem making other changes if these changes could be of assistance to the reader. Furthermore, everyone who bought this Talmud knew that it was a she’at ha-dehak publication and that it was only to be used if one had no access to an uncensored text. I have no doubt that R. Eybeschuetz felt the exact same way, and thus I would need more evidence before accepting Maciejko’s theory.

Maciejko makes a further claim that R. Eybeschuetz’s “editing” of the Talmud hints to his secret universalist religious views that are also found in Va-Avo ha-Yom el ha-Ayin. This is a much more provocative claim than what I discussed in the previous paragraph, and I am curious as to what other scholars will have to say about it.

In addition to being given permission to print an expurgated Talmud, the non-Jewish authorities also permitted “strange” aggadic passages to remain if a good explanation could be provided for them. In R. Eybeschuetz’s edition of Berakhot such explanations are found at the back of the volume, and the reader is alerted to them by a note on the talmudic page.[33]

Until Hebrewbooks.org put the Prague edition of Berakhot online, it was a very rare book, and Maciejko knows of only three copies in existence.[34] In 1981 Professor Shnayer Leiman republished R. Eybeschuetz’s explanations to Berakhot.[35]

To be continued

[1] See also Jeremy Brown’s post here and regarding Brown’s post see David Zilberberg’s earlier post here. [2] Only in the last year or so have I started to examine the ArtScroll Talmud on a regular basis and I am continuously impressed. This has to be one of the most significant Torah publications of the twentieth century. Since that is the case, I don’t see why such effort is being put into producing the new Koren Talmud. While it sometimes has points that do not appear in ArtScroll, I don’t know why anyone would prefer it over ArtScroll. I have had a chance to use both ArtScroll and Koren in reviewing some sugyot in Berakhot with my son, and in my mind ArtScroll always comes out on top. I even found one place where Soncino is to be preferred to Koren (although generally this is not the case). In Berakhot 29a it states: “Corresponding to what were these twenty-four of the Amida prayer of the fast days instituted?” Unlike Soncino, Koren provides no note to this sentence and most people who read it will have no clue what it is talking about since when they look in the siddur they will not find twenty-four blessings in the Amidah on fast days (as they will assume that the fast days referred to are Yom Kippur, Tisha be-Av, etc.). ArtScroll helpfully explains as follows: “On certain public fast days decreed in times of drought, an additional six blessings, enumerated in the Mishnah in Taanis 15a, are added to the eighteen regular blessings of the Shemoneh Esrei, for a total of twenty-four blessings.” I would only add that the .is esreh, not esrei עשרה proper transliteration of [3] See here where Chwat also posts a page of R. Hananel from the censored Sanhedrin 43a. [4] See his letter in Moshe Chaim Ephraim Bloch, Heikhal le- Divrei Hazal u-Fitgameihem (New York, 1948), p. 8. For more opposition to publishing the censored talmudic texts, see Eliezer Zvi Zweifel, Saneigor (Warsaw, 1885), pp. 265-266 [5] (Los Angeles, 2014). Regarding the Sanhedrin 67a text, see Maciejko’s English introduction, pp. xlviii-xlix. [6] P. xix. [7] Perush ha-Torah (Johannesburg, 1950), p. 69. as a synonym for בית הרחם David Brodsky also discusses [8] “va–na”. See A Bride Without a (Tübingen, 2006), pp. 55, 65, 84. In Alcalay’s English-Hebrew dictionary, s.v. בית. va–na, it gives three Hebrew definitions, one of which is הרחם [9] Iggerot Moshe, Even ha-Ezer 1, no. 102. This appears in the second to last paragraph of the responsum. The last paragraph is where R. Moshe presents his famous view that living in the Land of Israel is not an obligatory mitzvah, a mitzvah hiyuvit, but rather a mitzvah kiyumit.Here is a good time to cite an email I received from a Lakewood scholar which I think is quite insightful, and relates to the “immodest” title pages I discuss in my recent book. This scholar writes: There is one comment that I want to make right now regarding the pictures of the topless women that appeared and then disappeared in seforim. In addition to a point that I already once made that perhaps in earlier times the breasts were associated more with breastfeeding than with romance (it certainly was associated with that as well as can be seen from the Song of Songs, but not exclusively as today; perhaps it was more like a woman’s hair which can be seen in pictures), I would like to add a stronger point regarding these pictures.

It would seem to me that before photography when it wasn’t possible to produce real live looking pictures, people would But after the advent .ערוה be inclined to consider drawing an of real photographs, one gets the feeling that he is looking at a real image of a woman. It is for this reason, perhaps, that pictures of topless women became taboo. Once photographs paintings and drawings ,ערוה began to be associated with followed since they are so similar to photographs. In other words, they became guilty by association.

If there is any merit to this argument (or speculation) then one can go a step further and say that the advent of color motion pictures which is more alive caused further stringency in this area. A picture of a woman is not that “problematic”, but to watch her video is already more like “mingling without a mechitza”. Once the women are struck from the videos, it is natural that they should be expunged from the magazines as well. It is worth noting that both the laws outlawing pornography and the invention of photography coincided with one another. It would seem that it wasn’t outlawed as long as it was only in the form of a drawing, painting, or sculpture.

While it is true that earlier sources do speak of the sexual nature of breasts (see my post here note 19), I think that my correspondent has put his finger on a very important point. It would appear that breasts were more commonly associated with breastfeeding which meant that it was not problematic to show them in pictures. We even find such a portrayal on two tombstones in the old Sephardic cemetery in Altona. Here are the pictures as they appear in Michael Studemund-Halevy and Gaby Zuern, Zerstoert die Erinnerung Nicht. Der Juedische Friedhof Koenigstrasse in Hamburg (Munich, 2002), p. 109.

There are also a whole series of paintings and sculptures showing the Virgin Mary breastfeeding, obviously showing that this was not regarded as immodest in Christian circles.

The non-sexual nature of breasts also explains Shabbat 13a: עולא כי הוי אתי מבי רב הוה מנשק להו לאחוותיה אבי חדייהו (Perhaps because he found this text so strange, the Hatam .היה מנשק החכמה :Sofer interpreted it allegorically See Hiddushei Hatam Sofer, ad loc.)In response to the email from the Lakewood scholar, S. commented as follows Another point which I think needs to be brought up about nude art is just how ubiquitous it was in Europe, statues, frescoes, and title pages in books, etc., very much influenced by Classical culture, which was of utmost importance in European learning and culture. If you’re in Venice or Prague or any major city in Europe you can’t avoid seeing it. The style of title pages may have changed, as styles do, so it is not surprising that Jewish printing culture changed as well. And eventually these seforim became one, two, and three centuries old and were only seen by individuals. Nudity in art was not ubiquitous in Eretz Yisrael and America, and it is not surprising that we woke up in the 20th century in American and EY and found these things surprising. My point is that it doesn’t necessarily have to do with them seeing breasts as sexual or not (what about thighs and bare midriffs? And seforim even depicted nude women bathing in the mikveh.) It is also important to note that in the writing of many great people they refer to specific editions they used, and it is clear that they saw it and neither defaced or said anything about it. So attitudes might be a European city vs. non-European city thing as well.

In an earlier post here I dealt with this picture which appears in the Venice 1574 edition of the Mishneh Torah. Jacob D. called my attention to Shlomo Zalman Havlin’s comment in Yeshurun 29 (2013), p. 791 n. 7. Here Havlin states that when he attended the Chevron yeshiva its library had the Venice 1574 Mishneh Torah, but the yeshiva attempted to keep this edition from students due to the “immodest” picture reproduced above. Havlin also notes that some great rabbis were involved in the publication of this edition of the Mishneh Torah, including R. Menahem Azariah of Fano and R. Moses Provencal. [10] Meiri to Avodah Zarah p. 4.

[11] Meiri to Avodah Zarah p. 4, Ta’anit 27b (p. 97). Regarding Meiri’s claim, see Lawrence Zalcman, “Christians, Noserim, and Nebuchadnezzar’s Daughter,” JQR 81 (1991), pp. 411-426. Zalcman argues that Meiri did not just make up his interpretation for apologetic reasons, but was aware of Mandaeans who were known as natzurai and were linked to Nebuchadnezzar. [12] See Dikdukei Soferim ha-Shalem, ad loc. [13] The Talmud pages used by ArtScroll in its most recent printings are taken from Oz ve-Hadar’s edition (minus certain notes that appear only in the Oz ve-Hadar Talmuds). This means that ArtScroll omits the Shitah Mekubetzet, citing Meiri’s and R. Jonathan of Lunel’s tolerant comments, which appears in the standard Vilna edition, Bava Kamma 38a and 113a. [14] Hit’avkut, p. 2a. [15] See R. Raphael Rabbinovics, Ma’amar al Hadpasat ha- Talmud, ed. Haberman (Jerusalem, 1952), pp.112ff.; David Leib Zuenz, Gedulat Yehonatan (Petrokov, 1930), vol. 1, pp. 12ff. [16] “The Rabbi and the Jesuit” On Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz and Father Franciscus Haselbauer Editing the Talmud,” Jewish Social Studies 10 (Winter 2014), pp. 147-148. [17] The defense was published in installments in Ha-Magid, May 9, 16, 23, 30, 1877. Sections of the document appear in Zweifel, Saneigor, pp. 264-265, and in Saul Pinchas Rabinowitz’s edition of H. Graetz, Divrei Yemei Yisrael, vol. 8, p. 464 in the note. The complete document was published in Zuenz, Gedulat Yehonatan, pp. 135ff., but he does not identify its source, leading the reader to assume that he is quoting from a manuscript. [18] See Ha-Magid, May 9, 1877, pp. 170-171. (The reference to R. Broda as his teacher appears on p. 171.) As we shall see, R. Eybeschuetz had a great deal of respect for R. Broda. Yet R. Jacob Emden’s father, the Hakham Zvi, had a different perspective. See Yehezkel Duckesz, Ivah le-Moshav (Cracow, 1903), p. 14. [19] “The Rabbi and the Jesuit,” p. 166. [20] S. points out an interesting source which gives an unknown, but presumably true, biographical detail of R. Eybeschuetz’s life in the spiritual autobiography of an apostate Jew named Salomon Duitsch, A Short Account of the Wonderful Conversion to Christianity of Solomon Duitsch … Extracted from the Original Published in the Dutch Language (London 1771).S. wrote to me as follows: Prone to mystical visions and ascetic practices like fasting, he was regarded locally as a tzadik, but he eventually became convinced of Christianity. When this became known was forced to divorce his wife. After a period of wandering he ended up in Altona. He still looked Jewish and his issues were unknown there. He writes of meeting and staying the night at R. Eybeschuetz, who was very delighted to host him on account that R. Eybeschuetz was educated and taken care of as an orphan in the house of his great-grandfather in Nikolsburg. This information about a Nikolsburg period in R. Eybeschuetz’s life, and who this great-grandfather might be, is not mentioned in the biographies, and is a reminder that much information about people’s lives is not necessarily in books. [21] Maciejko, p. 150. [22] For details see ibid., pp. 169ff. [23] Ha-Magid, May 16, 1874, p. 180. [24] Ibid., May 23, p. 188. [25] Ibid. [26] Ibid., May 30, 1877, p. 199. [27] Ibid. In my post here I discussed how R. Jehiel Michel Epstein engaged in self-censorship in the Arukh ha-Shulhan in order not to have problems with the non-Jewish authorities. Rabbi Shalom Baum called my attention to Arukh ha Shulhan, Orah Hayyim 480:1, for another example of this. I have underlined the words which any educated reader would understand were not to be taken seriously (since how could contemporary Jews ask God to pour out his wrath on the Babylonians who departed the historical stage over two thousand years ago?): ואחר ששתו הכוס השלישי נוהגין לומר שפוך חמתך וגו’ ולפתוח הדלת כדי לזכור שהוא ליל שמורים ובזכות אמונה זו יבא משיח וישפוך חמתו על הבבליים שחרבו בהמ“ק [28] Ha-Magid, May 30, 1877, p. 199. Regarding the views of R. Luria and R. Feinstein, see my Changing the Immutable, p. 42. [29] I have used the translation in Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (Oxford, 1961), p. 165. [30] Ibid., pp. 164ff. [31] “The Rabbi and the Jesuit,” p. 167. [32] Ibid., pp. 173-174. [33] I don’t know why this procedure was not required for the other tractates published in Prague. [34] “The Rabbi and the Jesuit,” p. 179 [35] Or ha-Mizrah 29 (1981), pp. 418-428. Leiman’s publication remains valuable because of his introduction and notes.

Truth be Told[1] Comments on Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History by Marc B. Shapiro

Truth be Told[1] by Aryeh A. Frimer* Comments on Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites its History by Marc B. Shapiro (Oxford – Portland, OR: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2015). *Rabbi Prof. Aryeh A. Frimer holds the Ethel and David Resnick Chair of Active Oxygen Chemistry at Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel; email: [email protected]. He has lectured and published widely on various aspects of “Women and ;” see here. His most recent paper is: “Women, Kri’at haTorah and Aliyyot (with an Addendum on Partnership Minyanim),” Aryeh A. Frimer and Dov I. Frimer, Tradition, 46:4 (Winter, 2013), 67-238, available online here. I found R. Prof. Marc Shapiro’s new book Changing the Immutable a fascinating read and very hard to put down. The first seven chapters deal with censorship of halakhic and philosophical works, while the eighth focuses on lying and misrepresentation in pesak. As we know from his previous works, Shapiro has a very fluid writing style and the subject matter is always well researched. He does his best to be honest, unbiased and complete in his presentation. He is, moreover, intrigued with exploring the limits of the traditional consensus, which makes for some captivating reading. Yet, despite all these wonderful qualities – or perhaps, because of them, I found the present volume particularly unsettling and disconcerting. R. Jacob J Schacter’s classic article “Facing the Truths of History” had already sensitized me to the fact that publishers censor and even rewrite portions of the books they bring to press.[2] They do so because they find some of their author’s positions “unacceptable” – views which don’t fit the publishers’ or the intended reader’s “party line.” That such censorship continues unabashedly in the 21st century is disappointing, but then “there is no shame anymore.” But these are, by and large, sins of omission; somehow, with that I could live. But what I found particularly troubling with Changing the Immutable was the last chapter, which deals with lying in pesak. After going through the many examples Shapiro cites, the reader is left with one clear impression. One sometimes needs to be careful about trusting aPosek , since he may well be misrepresenting something in his ruling. It could be the source and authority of the prohibition. For example, is the prohibition based on a biblical commandment (positive or negative), rabbinic edict, custom or mere public policy (slippery slope) considerations? Alternatively, the expressed reason may not be the real grounds for the prohibition. In addition, the application may be much broader than halakhically permitted. To my mind these are shocking revelations: these are not sins of omission but commission; the perpetrators are scholars and religious leaders; and these deviations constitute intellectual dishonesty at its worst. Our author is not insensitive to this dissonance. In an attempt to explain how these scholars justify not being fully honest in pesak, Shapiro writes in the last two pages of the book (pp. 284-285) about “redefining truth.” He indicates that these decisors see nothing wrong in what they are doing, since their ultimate goal is the “higher good”. As they see it, they have ultimately prevented their respective communities and congregants from sinning and deviating from the proper path of shemirat mitsvot. The fact that these scholars have bent the truth, and distorted Jewish law in the process, is of lesser importance. The ends in these cases, justify the means. It is with these jarring observations that the book comes to an abrupt end, without any further comment or soul- searching. This is despite the fact that on page 239ff, Shapiro brings one citation from Hazal after another about the centrality of truth, and the seriousness of the sin of lying. After all, the Torah itself commands us: mi-Devar“ sheker tirhak” – “From untruthfulness, distance thyself” (Exodus 23:7). If what the author writes in the last chapter is true, then Hazal’s eloquent statements about the importance of honesty have become nothing but a mockery. It raises serious moral questions with insufficient and unsatisfying answers. How are we now supposed to educate our children and talmidim as to the cardinal nature of truth and truthfulness?! How are we to live with such a clash between theory and practice? In the course of our own study of Women’s Tefilla Groups, my brother R. Prof. Dov Frimer and I researched misrepresentation in pesak in the context of women’s issues.[3] Many leading Rabbis were deeply and justifiably concerned that some of the feminist practices introduced were ultimately “bad for the Jews” on public policy grounds.[4] But instead of saying so clearly, some rabbis adduced reasons that were not halakhically sound. Our own research has led us to the clear conclusion that the vast majority of the gedolim do not condone this type of misrepresentation or that discussed in the last chapter of Changing the Immutable. Giving an erroneous ruling – despite one’s good intentions, or even misstating the reason or source for a prohibition, violates the prohibition “mi-Devar sheker tirhak“, if not a variety of other issurim. We begin our discussion of this issue with the famous Pesak Din (halakhic ruling) promulgated by a conference of rabbis who met in Michalowce Hungary in 1865. This edict initially signed by twenty-five leading rabbinic figures and subsequently by many more, ruled that nine practices (including, inter alia, synagogue choirs, sermons in the vernacular, synagogues weddings, absence of a central bima, canonical robes for the Hazan) were halakhically forbidden. Leading rabbis Moses Schick and Esriel Hildesheimer and many of their colleagues refused to sign. The fundamental claim of Rabbis Schick and Hildesheimer was that, contrary to the impression given by the Pesak Din, the only grounds for some of the edicts were public policy mi-gdar( milta) – not halakhic – considerations.[5] The term Pesak“ Din” (legal ruling) was in fact a conscious misnomer, an attempt to hide the truth, and, hence, a flagrant deviation from Jewish law with which they could take no part. R. Schick also argued that, since the Pesak Din was promulgated by a Jewish court, it violated bal tosif, adding a mitsva to the Torah.[6] Similarly, R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes[7] argues that it is forbidden to call a rabbinic edict a biblical prohibition because it violates not only bal tosif but also mi-devar sheker tirhak. Similarly, R. Chayim Hirschensohn[8] charges those rabbis who forbid women to become involved in politics with violating both bal tosif and lying. R. Chaim Soloveitchik of Brisk[9], maintains that both Ra’avad and Rambam agree that “mi-devar sheker tirhak” forbids a posek from claiming that a rabbinic injunction is biblical. R. Jacob Israel Kanievsky,[10] refuting the suggestion that it is forbidden to take part in elections in the secular State of Israel, writes: “…And your Honor should know that even to be zealous, it is forbidden to teach Torah not according to the halakha (Avot V:8), and that which is not true will not succeed at all.” R. Haim David Halevi[11] prohibits a posek from misrepresenting halakha and/or giving an erroneous reason for a prohibition for two basic reasons: (1) the biblical prohibition of “mi-devar sheker tirhak” and (2) a total loss of trust in rabbinic authority would result should the truth become known (see more below). [See also the related opinions of Rabbis Ehrenberg, Rogeler and Sobel cited below.] As Prof. Shapiro documents in Changing the Immutable, some posekim dissent. They argued, on various grounds, that “mi-devar sheker tirhak” is not applicable to cases where halakha is misrepresented so as to prevent future violations of Jewish law. Other scholars argue that the dispensation to modify the truth in order to maintain peace (me-shanim mi-penei ha-shalom, Yevamot 65b) also applies to misrepresenting halakha in order to maintain peace between kelal Yisrael and the Almighty. Yet others maintain that if a posek believes an action should be prohibited because of mi-gdar milta, he may misrepresent the reason for or source of a prohibition; since there will be no change in the legal outcome, mi-devar sheker tirhak does not apply.[12] Finally, some have argued thatmi-devar sheker tirhak only refers to lying in court.[13] But these arguments have been seriously and vigorously challenged. Thus, R. Joshua Menahem Mendel Ehrenberg[14] demonstrates that the consensus ofposekim – rishonim and aharonim – is that mi-devar sheker tirhak applies in all cases, inside court and out. R. Ehrenberg further argues that this is true even if it is intended to promote a religious purpose (ve-afilu li-devar mitsva). Similarly, R. Elijah [ben Samuel] of Lublin[15] chastises a colleague for lying in a decision, even though his intentions were noble. R. Ovadiah Yosef[16] discusses at length whether a judge, maintaining a minority position on a three judge panel, can lie and say “I do not know what to rule,” – so that two more judges will be added to the panel and his minority opinion will have a chance to become the majority view; he concludes that it is forbidden. R. Solomon Sobel[17] explicitly states that me-shanim mi-penei ha-shalom only allows one to change the facts, not the halakha. Both R. Jacob Ettlinger and R. Margaliot[18] maintain that me-shanim mi-penei ha- shalom allows one only to obfuscate by using language which can be understood in different ways, but not to lie; hence, misrepresenting halakhic reasons or sources would also be forbidden. Also unmentioned is the long list of posekim (including the Radba”z)[19] who maintain thateven if one is theoretically permitted to misrepresent Halakha, under certain unique circumstances – one is nevertheless forbidden to do so in practice. This is because “the truth will out.” Not only will this revelation ultimately lead to a terriblehillul Hashem, but it will undermine peoples’ trust in the rabbinic establishment. In this regard R. Benjamin Lau has observed:[20] The rabbi is expected to know and present the various aspects of each issue and not to conceal those aspects that are inconsistent with his own point of view. If a rabbi is untrue to the sources and reaches his decision without taking account of conflicting views, he will be seen to be untrustworthy. And a lack of trust between a rabbi and his community of questioners will drive a wedge between that community and the Torah overall. Stating the truth, of course, does not require the decisor to remain neutral; his role requires him to reach a decision one way or the other. But the decision must be reached through disclosure, not concealment, of the alternatives….. Now, when everyone has access to the [Bar Ilan] Responsa Project data base and Google provides answers to all imaginable questions, everyone can check every responsum and examine its trustworthiness. A rabbi who rules in an oversimplified way, whether strictly or leniently, in a area of halakhic complexity will be caught as untrustworthy. Having lived through the crises and confrontations of women’s prayer groups, women on religious councils, women in communal leadership roles and women’s aliyyot – I can testify that there is great need for both in-depth knowledge and truthfulness. The “hillul Hashem and loss of trust” argument is not just hype – but painfully all too accurate! Many of the rabbis in the 1970s lost control of the religious leadership of their communities because they were unprepared or unwilling to deal with the challenges honestly and head on. Many rabbis simply tried to stonewall the situation, while others were not forthright about the real reason for forbidding such practices. As previously noted, the Rabbis may well have been correct that many of the feminist practices introduced were halakhically unsound or “bad for the Jews” on a variety of public policy grounds.[21] But instead of saying so clearly (as Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l had urged and himself practiced), some rabbis waffled, while others prevaricated. But the halakhic truth quickly became known – a consequence of the “information age.” And as a result, many balebatim lost trust in the religious leadership as a whole. For them the conclusion was simply: “Everything boils down to politics.” It is, therefore, critically important to reiterate that the cases cited by our author, exemplify neither pesak in general, nor the consensus view of the posekim. It is forbidden to misrepresent in halakhic rulings as a matter of law and policy. In essence, then, Prof Shapiro’s scholarly and well-documented book presents the reader with a most fascinating review of an approach within halakhic decision making, which has been rejected by mainstream pesak. Indeed, such cases need to be actively addressed if they are to be uprooted. Response by Marc B. Shapiro I understand why Professor Frimer is troubled by what I wrote, and to a large extent my conclusions diverge from his own. All I would say is that the matter is complex, and rather than attempt to simplify matters, as I feel Frimer has done, we must attempt to understand how the same Sages who spoke about the importance of truth could at times countenance departure from it. This is a challenge that requires sensitivity and nuance, and appreciation of changing times and values. When Frimer sees a text that permits false attribution, he sees prevarication and hypocrisy. But a historically attuned outlook would seek to understand rather than condemn. Ironically, it is Frimer who is judging the Sages and decisors, because if their ideas do not conform to his understanding then these ideas are regarded by him as problematic. Thus, Frimer cites the famous 1865 pesak din of Michalowce and tells us that R. Moses Schick and R. Esriel Hildesheimer opposed it since they saw it as departing from the truth. While their position is certainly significant, what about the fact that among Hungarian rabbis they were a minority, and most of the leading Hungarian rabbis supported the pesak? How is my argument refuted by citing Rabbis Schick and Hildesheimer if they were opposed by most of their colleagues? Doesn’t the fact that most of the Hungarian rabbis opposed Rabbis Schick and Hildesheimer support my position? As for the various rabbinic opinions cited by Frimer, I don’t deny that these opinions exist, and in my book I refer to Frimer’s famous article on women’s prayer groups in which he cites these opinions. But I also make the point that there is an alternative tradition which allows much more leeway for authorities to at times diverge from the truth. I also believe, contrary to Frimer, that this is a mainstream position. Since this position is held by R. Ovadiah Yosef and R. Hayyim Kanievsky, I don’t see how it is possible for one to state that it is not a mainstream position. The point of the chapter, however, was not to advocate for one position or the other, but to focus on the alternative tradition, the existence of which is more or less suppressed today. I was explicit that my aim was to show how far some were willing to go in sanctioning deviations from the truth, and I indicate that there are views in opposition to these. However, my intent was to study the views of those with a “liberal” perspective on the importance of truth. It is this tradition that I wished to explore, and to rescue it, as it were, from the well-intentioned apologetics. I never state that this is the only authentic position. On the contrary, one can find the opposite perspective presented in numerous articles. This is why I thought it was important to present alternative views, from the Talmud until the present, views which I think show that there is a rabbinic conception of the Noble Lie. I also must dispute the following statement by Frimer: “R. Joshua Menahem Mendel Ehrenberg demonstrates that the consensus of posekim – rishonim and aharonim – is that mi- devar sheker tirhak applies in all cases, inside court and out. R. Ehrenberg further argues that this is true even if it is intended to promote a religious purpose.” How can Frimer state that R. Ehrenberg “demonstrates” such a thing? What R. Ehrenberg does is present an argument, and everyone can evaluate its cogency. The fact is that numerous authorities do not accept R. Ehrenberg’s position, which means that they would not agree that he has proven his case. To Frimer, and others like him who have the same reaction after reading chapter 7, I can only say that modern views of how to understand texts, and what we today regard as truth, cannot be used as a measure with which to judge people who lived in a very different time and had a very different understanding of these sorts of matters. It is their understanding that I seek to explore, rather than foisting my own value judgments upon them. Unlike Frimer, who is involved in halakhic writing and attempting to influence the community in religious matters, I write from a more “objective” perspective, without such concerns. As such, while Frimer wishes to “uproot” what he regards as unacceptable views of certain poskim. I seek to understand the phenomenon and to describe it. When, on p. 284, I speak about redefining truth, I am not speaking about poskim per se but about how to understand the entire phenomenon that I have documented in the book. The question is how does the importance of truth coexist with what we have seen, and it is in this context that I discuss how truth need not be seen as equivalent to factual or historical truth. I agree with Frimer that none of the great poskim supported lying in pesak as a normative option on a regular basis. Yet as I have already indicated, I believe that there is a tradition that allows for not being frank at certain times, when it is thought that other values are at stake. In the book I state that we should understand this position in a sympathetic fashion even if it is at odds with how today we generally approach matters. Frimer asks how are we supposed to educate our children and students as to the importance of truth and truthfulness if what I say is correct. This is a good question with which educators need to struggle, but it is not a refutation of what I have written. If my position is correct, the world will not collapse. It will just be one more Torah matter, alongside Amalek, yefat toar, slavery, homosexuality, etc., that at certain times is not in line with contemporary values. Here are some more comments relevant to the issue of truth. 1. Amichai Markowitz called my attention to a talmudic text that I overlooked. Nedarim 23b states: “The Tanna has intentionally obscured the law, in order that vows should not be lightly treated.” This relates to the issue of the truth not being made available to all. See also Kovetz Iggerot Hazon Ish, vol. 2, no. 78, that one should not reveal to the masses that the Sages forbade things that the Torah permitted.[22] 2. R. Joseph Ibn Caspi writes that at times it is appropriate for members of the intellectual elite to lie.[23] This explains how Joseph lied to his brothers when he accused them of being spies (Gen. 42:9). In support of this view Ibn Caspi cites both Maimonides and Aristotle.[24] The mention of Maimonides no doubt refers to the latter’s notion of “necessary beliefs”, but it is not clear where Ibn Caspi got his quote from Aristotle, since as far as I can determine Aristotle says no such thing.[25]

3. R. Abraham Arbel writes as follows[26]:

ואם מצא לנכון המגדל עז לשבח חכם כהרמב”ם שלא שקר והיה אמיתי, משמע דפשיטא ליה שגם אצל חכם בדרגתו אפשר למצוא שישקר משום כבודו.

R. Arbel also adds the following passage which I am sure will be very troubling to Frimer (as Frimer rejects the notion that “one sometimes needs to be careful about trusting a Posek”). R. Arbel’s words should be understood in line with the many sources I cite in the last chapter of my book.

וע”ע טהרת ישראל (סי’ קפה אות סו) בדין אשה שאמרה שהחכם טהר לה הכתם ועתה מכחיש אותה החכם לומר שלא שאלה אותו, דחישינן שהחכם רואה עתה שטעה שטהר, ובוש לומר שטעה, ולכן משקר עתה לומר שלא שאלה אותו. וכ”כ בהפלאה (קונ’ אחרון סי קטו סק”א( שהחכם לא נאמן להכחיש אשה, שאומרת שהחכם טהר, כשהכתם לפנינו והוא טמא, שהרי הוא נוגע בדבר שהרי טעה.

4. R. Ovadiah Yosef stated that if X tells you something he wrote, you can tell others that you read it in X’s book, and this is not considered a lie.[27]

5. In Changing the Immutable, p. 253, I cite a passage from Devarim Rabbah which states that for the sake of peace, even “Scripture itself” recorded something false. I should have also cited Midrash Tanhuma 96:7, which is even more striking, attributing the falsehood directly to God (as opposed to merely speaking of “Scripture”):

ארשב”ג גדול הוא השלום שהכתיב [שכתב] הקב”ה דברים בתורה שלא היו אלא בשביל השלום. 6. Let me offer another example of censorship in halakhic matters, the sort of thing that Frimer claims must be battled against and “uprooted” for the sake of Torah truth.[28] Here is page 141 from R. Yitzhak Zilberstein’s and R. Moshe Rothschild’s Torat ha-Yoledet. The matter dealt with is whether a husband can be in the delivery room. The authors quote the opinion that if there is a need the husband can be in the room. In note 2, R. Moshe Feinstein, Iggerot Moshe, Yoreh Deah II, no. 75, is quoted as follows:

הנה אם יש צורך, איני רואה איסור. אבל אסור לו להסתכל ביציאת הולד ממש . . .

However, if you look at the actual text of Iggerot Moshe, what he says is something different.

הנה אם יש צורך איני רואה איסור ואף בלא צורך איני רואה איסור, אבל אסור לו להסתכל ביציאת הולד ממש . . .

I have underlined the words that are deleted byTorat ha- Yoledet. This deletion allows them to present R. Moshe Feinstein as saying that only if there is a need for the husband to be in the room can be there. Yet R. Moshe explicitly states that even if there is no “need”, he can still remain with his wife. I know that there are some who are thinking that I am making a big deal out of nothing, and that it must have been an accident that the words were deleted as that no one would dare to purposely alter what R. Moshe wrote. I am sorry to say that this is not the case. Here are two pages from R. Pesach Eliyahu Falk’s Levushah shel Torah.[29]

From it we see that someone asked R. Zilberstein about the words that were deleted, and R. Zilberstein did not say that they were deleted in error. On the contrary, he tells the questioner that the words were deleted on purpose, after consultation with “gedolei ha-poskim”. In other words, these poskim disagreed with R. Moshe and therefore instructed R. Zilberstein that when he quoted Iggerot Moshe he should censor R. Moshe’s words so that people should not learn the extent of R. Moshe’s lenient view. After all that I have written in my book, I don’t think people will be surprised by this. Frimer, however, who has assured us that this sort of thing is not “mainstream”, and indeed is “forbidden”, will have to explain how it is that a respected posek like R. Zilberstein, acting on the instruction of other great poskim, could adopt such an approach, an approach which stands as a refutation of Frimer’s point.

As I have said already, I am not claiming that this sort of distortion is an everyday phenomenon. But I do claim that many poskim believe that they have the authority to alter the truth when they think that this is necessary. We can’t pretend that the texts I have cited don’t exist.

7. In his post Frimer writes: “R. Elijah [ben Samuel] of Lublin chastises a colleague for lying in a decision, even though his intentions were noble.” I don’t think the word “chastises” is appropriate in this case. R. Elijah disagrees with the other rabbi, but the disagreement is not strident. For example, R. Elijah writes as follows in Yad Eliyahu, no. 62:

ע”ד אשר האריך רום מעלתו בלשונו בשפת אמת להעמיד שפת שקר במקומי אני עומד שאינו כדאי להיות רגיל בכך ואף שמותר בו מאיזה טעם שיהיה.

8. In the next issue ofMasorah le-Yosef my article on “necessary beliefs” will appear. In this article I discuss how Maimonides and other figures say things that do not reflect their true opinion, but are merely “necessary beliefs”, i.e., “beliefs” that the masses should accept but which are not really true at all. If these authorities think that the masses can be fed false ideas when it comes to theology, why should halakhah be any different?

9. See R. Mordechai Eliasburg, Shevil ha-Zahav (Warsaw, 1897), p. 27-28, who claims that both Nahmanides and R. Jacob Emden recorded things in their writings that they did not really believe.

10. R. Chaim Sunitzky called my attention to R. Israel Weltz, Divrei Yisrael, vol. 3, no. 170, who doesn’t see such a problem with false stories if they lead people in a good direction.

אין זה נורא כ”כ בספורי מעשיות כאלה כשהכוונה היא לטובה ללמוד. ממנה מוסר ודרכי הי”ת

And now for some comic relief. A few weeks ago Ezra Glinter reviewed my book for the Forward. See here.

He used this opportunity to take some hits at the haredi world, focusing on matters that are not mentioned in the book. Rabbi Avi Shafran, who is paid to respond to this sort of thing, penned his own piece for the Forward available here.

The comedy starts in the first two paragraphs which read:

Psst! I’ve got a secret to share. It’s from deep inside the Orthodox Jewish world. Come closer… Okay, here it is: Orthodoxy changes!

It’s not much of a secret, actually. At least in these here parts. But it seems to be an unfamiliar concept for Marc Shapiro, a University of Scranton professor and author of the recent book, “Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History.”

It is obvious that Shafran has never even looked at my book and is only basing his comments on what appears in Glinter’s review. Those who have read the book know that a major theme of it is precisely how Orthodoxy changes. In fact, there is no one in the world today whose scholarship is more associated with the thesis that Orthodoxy changes than me. Much of the criticism of me is on precisely this point, that I have exaggerated the amount of change. Yet here Shafran comes and says that I am ignorant about how Orthodoxy changes. This is what I mean by comic relief.

Shafran then writes:

If a biography of Bertrand Russell can choose to elide the great philosopher’s serial marital infidelities and not be accused of rewriting the past, a hagiography of a great rabbi should certainly be permitted to overlook judgments he made with the best of intentions that in retrospect might seem misguided to some today. Such acts of civility are at times portrayed as scandalous by Shapiro and his reviewer.

A biography of Russel that chooses to omit his marital infidelities would indeed be rightly accused of rewriting the past. As for the second part of the sentence, I agree that a hagiography can leave out material of the sort Shafran mentions, but that is because it is a hagiography! If it intended to be a biography, then no, it cannot overlook mistaken judgments made by the subject, or else it ceases to be biography. I also do not think that it is an act of civility to refrain from writing about such mistaken judgments (as for example, R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg’s early misjudgment of the Nazi regime).

Shafran provides a few examples of how practice in Orthodoxy has changed, none of which I disagree with. But then again, my book has nothing to do with this. He writes:

One opinion in the Talmud, for example, permits fowl and milk to be cooked together and eaten. Just try ordering milk-braised chicken in your local kosher eatery these days; they’ll sic the mashgiach on you in a Borough Park moment. Men using mirrors was once forbidden as a “womanly” act, a once-true assessment that, for most Orthodox men today, is no longer considered applicable.

Let us say that a new edition of the Talmud was published that deleted the lines that tell us that one opinion permitted fowl and milk to be cooked and eaten together? Would Shafran be OK with this? I assume not, and it is thus unfortunate that he doesn’t know that it is precisely this sort of censorship that my book is focused on. What we have here is not only criticism without having read the book, but criticism without having any clue as to what the book is about.

And then, to top off the comic relief, Shafran ends his piece as follows:

“Why is that so hard for Orthodoxy’s critics to understand?”

I have been called some different things in my life, but this is the first time I have been referred to as one of “Orthodoxy’s critics”. Let me also add that Changing the Immutable has sold very well in the haredi world, and this is not surprising since it is not an anti-haredi book at all.

[1] AAF would like to thank Dov I. Frimer, Shael I. Frimer, David A. Kessler and Joel B. Wolowelsky for their insightful comments and suggestions on previous drafts. [2] R. Jacob J. Schacter, “Facing the Truths of History,” Torah u-Madda Journal, 8 [1998-1999]: pp. 200-273. [3] Aryeh A. Frimer and Dov I. Frimer, “Women’s Prayer Services: Theory and Practice. Part 1 – Theory,” Tradition, 32:2 (Winter 1998), pp. 5-118. PDF available online here. See in particular Addendum, part 6. [4] See our discussion in Frimer and Frimer, supra note 3, Section E therein. [5] R. Moses Schick in Likutei Teshuvot Hatam Sofer, R. Israel Stern, ed. (London, 1965), sec. 82, pp. 73-75; Meir Hildesheimer, “She’eilot u-Teshuvot Maharam Schick,” Tsefunot, 2:2(6) (Tevet 5750), pp. 87-95, at p. 93; Yona Emanuel, “Me’a Shana lePetirat haRav Azriel Hildesheimer Zatsal,” haMa’ayn, XXXIX, 4 (Tammuz 5759), pp. 1-7, “Al Kinus haRabbanim be- Mikhalovitch” pp. 2-4; Michael K. Silber, “The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy: The Invention of a Tradition,” In The Uses of Tradition, Jack Wertheimer, ed. (New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, 1992), p. 23-84; Mordechai Eliav, “Mekomo shel Rav Azriel Hildesheimer be-Ma’avak al Demutah shel Yahadutr Hungariah,” 27 (1962), 59-86; Nethanel Katzburg, “Pesak Din shel Michalovitch 5726,” in Perakim be-Toldot ha-Hevrah ha-Yehudit be-Yemei ha-Beinayim u-be-Et ha-Hadashah, Emanuel Etkes and Yosef Salmon, eds. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1980), 273-286; Jacob Katz, The Unhealed Breach: The Secession of Orthodox Jewry from the General Community in Hungary and Germany (Hebrew), Jerusalem, 1994 – see especially Chapter 8. [6] See Frimer and Frimer, supra note 3, Addendum, part 5. [7] R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes, Darkei Hora’a, siman 6, first footnote, [8] R. Chayim Hirschensohn Resp. Malki baKodesh, II, sec. 4, p. 13. [9] Cited in R. Zvi [Hershel] Schachter,Nefesh haRav (Jerusalem: Reishit Yerushalayyim, 1994), p.178. [10] R. Jacob Israel Kanievsky, Keraina deIggarta, letter 203, pp. 219-220. [11] Responsum to Aryeh A. Frimer, dated 7 Shevat 5756 and published in Resp. Mayyim Hayyim, III, sec. 55. [12] R. Chaim Kanievsky, Masekhet Kutim, 1:14, Me-taher, note 30, and conversation with Aryeh A. Frimer (February 20, 1995), [13] R. Zelig Epstein, in a conversation with Aryeh A. Frimer and Dear (March 8, 1996). R. Jerucham Fishel Perlau, Commentary to Rav Sa’adia Gaon’s Sefer HaMitzvot, I, p. 156b. [14] R. Joshua Menahem Mendel Ehrenberg, Resp. Devar Yehoshua, I, addendum to sec. 19, no. 6 (see also V, Y.D. sec 12). See also R. Nahum Yavruv, Niv Sefatayyim (Jerusalem, 1989) Niv Sefatayyim, kelal 1; R. Eliezer Judah Waldenberg, Resp. Tsits Eliezer 15:12:2. [15] R. Elijah Rogeler, Resp. Yad Eliyahu, sec. 61 and 62 [16] R. Ovadiah Yosef, Resp. Yabia Omer, II, H.M., sec. 3 [17] R. Solomon Sobel,Salma Hadasha, Mahadura Tinyana, Haftarat Toledot; cited in R. Jacob Yehizkiyah Fisch, Titen Emet leYa’akov (Jerusalem, 1982), sec. 5, no. 36. [18] R. Jacob Ettlinger, Arukh leNer, Yevamot 65b, s.v. “she- Ne’emar avikha tsiva” and “Ko tomeru leYosef,” and R. Reuben Margaliot, Kunteres Hasdei Olam, sec. 1061, at the end of his edition of Sefer Hasidim (Mossad haRav Kook: Jerusalem, 5724). See also R. Moses David Maccabbi Leventhal, “Shinui beDevar haShalom,” , 3 (Spring 5760), pp. 49-64. [19] R. Yehuda Herzl Henkin, Resp. Benei Vanim, I, sec. 37, no. 12, argues that such misrepresentation most often results in gossip, hate, unlawful leniencies in other areas,hillul Hashem, and a total loss of trust in rabbinic authority should the truth become known. (This despite the fact that R. Y.H. Henkin maintains that when a posek upgrades a prohibition for a just cause, there is no prohibition of either bal Tosif or lying). Similar views are expressed by Resp. Torah liShma, sec. 371; R. Moses Jehiel Weiss, Beit Yehezkel, p. 77; R. Abraham haKohen Kook, Orah Mishpat, no. 111 (pp. 117-120) and 112 (pp. 120-129); R. Joseph Elijah Henkin, Teshuvot Ivra, sec. 52, no. 3 (in Kitvei haGri Henkin, II); R. Haim David Halevi, responsum to Aryeh A. Frimer, dated 7 Shevat 5756 – published in Resp. Mayyim Hayyim, III, sec.55; and R. David Feinstein, conversation with Aryeh A. Frimer and Dov I. Frimer, March 19, 1995. See also the commentary of Radbaz to M.T., Melakhim 6:3, where even normally permitted lying is forbidden lest it result in hillul Hashem should the truth be discovered. Similarly, in discussing Sanhedrin 29a and the cause of Adam and Eve’s sin, R. Hanokh Zundel, Eits Yosef, ad loc., s.v. “Ma,” comments that one must be particularly careful how a stringency and its rationale are formulated, for if no distinction is drawn between a stringency and the original ordinance, any error found in the stringency may lead the masses to believe that there is an error in the original ordinance itself. [20] R. Benjamin Lau, “The Challenge of Halakhic Innovation,” Meorot 8 Tishrei 5771, pp 43-57 at pp. 45-46, available online here. [21] See our discussion in Section E of Frimer and Frimer, supra note 3. [22] It could be that the Hazon Ish would not be opposed if this information was revealed in a responsible way. I say this since his language is והבא להכריז בין המון העםכי חכמים גזרו עלינו דברים שהתורה לא אסרתן כונתו ידועה . . . והתוצאות ידועות (Emphasis added) This might mean that it is only objectionable if someone makes a big deal out of the fact that a certain prohibition is only rabbinic [23] Mishneh Kesef (Cracow, 1906), vol. 2, to Gen 42:12 (pp. 93-94). נכון לגדול הנפש שיכזכ בהיות זה :His quote of Aristotle is [24] הכרחי [25] See Jane S. Zembaty, “Aristotle on Lying,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 31 (1993), pp. 7-29. [26] Ahoti Kalah (Jerusalem, 2007), p. 149. [27] Eliyahu Sheetrit, Rabbenu (Jerusalem, 2014), p. 266. [28] This example, and also R. Falk’s Levushah shel Torah, were called to my attention by R. Yonason Rosman. [29] (Jerusalem, 2007), vol. 2, pp. 783-784. Dorshei Yichudcha: A Portrait of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson

Dorshei Yichudcha: A Portrait of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson[1] by Joey Rosenfeld Joey Rosenfeld is a psychotherapist in St. Louis where he recently moved with his family. He recently published his first sefer, sc’hok d’yitzchak on the Kabbalistic theme butzina d’kardinusa, or darkened light. More of his writing can be found online at Residual Speech. לאו כל מוחא סביל דא[2] Tasked with the formidable project of recounting Franz Rosenzweig’s life, Emmanuel Levinas apologized in advance for speaking, as well, about Rosenzweig’s opus, The Star of Redemption. The reason for this, Levinas wrote, was not due to lack of distinction, rather it would be nearly impossible to separate the man from his work.[3] This sentiment can be applied equally to Elliot R. Wolfson and his vast oeuvre. Professor Wolfson’s breathtaking breadth of scholarship – starting from his Through a Speculum that Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism[4] to his recent Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania[5] – can be said to touch upon every field within the Humanities, as well as significant areas within the Sciences. Trained in Philosophy and the field of Jewish Studies, with a focus on Jewish Mysticism, Wolfson’s erudition, astonishing at times, covers diverse fields such as Hermeneutics, Anthropology, Sociology, Bible, Literary Criticism, Gender Theory, Psychology and Psychoanalysis, Poetics, Neuroscience, and Comparative Religious studies.[6] While many authors share a similar output as that of Wolfson; ten books, four edited volumes, and tens of essays; few share the unique and apparent unity-of-thought that flows through his body of work. Whether it is an in-depth analysis of occularcentrism within Medieval Jewish mysticism, the dynamics of truth as refracted through the temporal presence of beginning-middle-end, or the Eros of poesies and the poesies of Eros in Jewish Mysticism and Philosophical hermeneutics, Wolfson’s presence as an author, delicately weaving together a tapestry of sources is felt through his texts. This presence, however, is present through its absence. Wolfson occludes himself through and within his texts, thus coloring each of his works with the dialectical dance of concealment and disclosure. Through a speculum of sources, culled from all arenas of thought – ranging from the thirteenth-century masters of Ecstatic Kabbalah to the current leaders of Haredi-Mysticism; from the annals of Greek Philosophy to the most current Hermeneutic- Phenomenologists – Wolfson speaks through and beyond the language of his sources. Born on the 19th of Kislev,[7] a day pregnant with mystical significance within the Hasidic community of Chabad,[8] Elliot R. Wolfson was raised in a traditional Orthodox Jewish home. With an Orthodox rabbi as his father who was both a pulpit rabbi and a Rosh Yeshiva,[9] young Elliot Wolfson “was surrounded by Jewish textuality” and “was exposed as a teenager to the Hasidic works of Nachman of Bratslav and Chabad. And both of those sects were quite present physically in my environment, so it wasn’t just book study, but I interacted with Hasidim from both of these groups. And that was really my initial entry into kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism,” as he explained in a 2012 interview.[10] Beginning with the Tanya at age thirteen, Wolfson recalls his first experience with the texts of Breslov at aTikkun Leil Shavuot at the age of fifteen. After that, he began attending classes of the well-known mashpiah of Breslov, Rabbi Zvi Aryeh Rosenfeld.[11] At sixteen, Wolfson began studying Rav Kook’s Orot ha-Kodesh, along with the various works of The Ramchal, including Kelach Pitchei Hokhmah, Derekh ha-, and Da’at Tevunot, etc., and a year later, at age seventeen, he began studying the works of The Maharal.[12] Wolfson spent three semesters at , where he had the privilege of hearing Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, at his “public lectures, which were masterful in their philosophical exegesis of Jewish texts. Indeed, I would have to say that it was from Soloveitchik that I drew inspiration for the possibility of rendering traditional sources in a philosophical key,” remembered Wolfson.[13] After his time at Yeshiva University, Wolfson transferred to a program at the CUNY Graduate Center in conjunction with Queens College. It was there, under the tutelage of Professors Henry Wolz and Edith Wyschogrod that he first immersed himself in philosophical study. The relationship with Wyschogrod, whom Wolfson considers to be “one of my most important teachers,” opened up new vistas in the world of continental philosophy, and continued to bear fruits, even after her passing in 2009.[14] It was at CUNY Queens that Wolfson focused his studies to the fields of hermeneutics, phenomenology and existentialism; three registers of thought that would influence his subsequent foray into the field of Jewish mysticism. After finishing his studies at CUNY Queens, Wolfson made the decision to pursue graduate studies at Brandeis University in the field of Jewish studies with a focus on Jewish mysticism. It was there, under the tutelage of Professors Alexander Altmann, Marvin Fox, and Michael Fishbane, that Wolfson completed his dissertation work on the thirteenth-century Spanish kabbalist Moses de Leon.[15] Regarding Wolfson’s dissertation, one can glean from the following anecdote the deep sense of hermeneutical secrecy already stirring. Wolfson recounts, “an episode that occurred in one of the doctoral qualifying exams. The topic was Perushei Ma’aseh Bere’shit and Perushei Ma’aseh Merkavah in twelfth- and thirteenth-century philosophic and kabbalistic literature. At the end of the exam Professor [Alexander] Altmann asked, “So Mr. Wolfson, what is the secret of the chariot according to Maimonides?” And I said, “The secret is that there is no secret,” and he clapped his hands as a sign of approval.”[16] His dissertation became his first published work, The Book of the Pomegranate: Moses de Leon’s Sefer ha-rimmon.[17] Upon the completion of his graduate work, Wolfson eventually joined the faculty at New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies in 1987, and was awarded the Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew Studies at New York University in 1993, where he served until early 2014, when he moved to California and currently serves as the Marsha and Jay Glazer professor of Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. On a more personal note, I have been gifted the opportunity to form a close relationship with Professor Wolfson over the past few years. While he was still in New York, I had the chance to sit and learn on two separate occasions of which I would like to recall. Through the help of my dear friend, Menachem Butler, a meeting was set up in Professor Wolfson’s NYU office.[18] Having previously read numerous works of his, I was prepared to meet a removed and rightfully proud scholar. Entering into Professor Wolfson’s cramped office, I was immediately taken- aback by the sheer amount of books and seforim that lined the shelves, desk and window sills. What was most wonderful, however, was not the quantity of books, but the quality, the difference and the scope of the works scattering his office. On Wolfson’s desk one could find the most current in haredi kabbalah, Heideggerian studies, gender theory as well as recently published works of Hasidut and the students of The Vilna Gaon. These contradictory volumes were not organized by topic, rather they sat, interspersed, erasing the imaginary demarcations separating one stream of thought from its other. Having prepared a ma’amar from Rav Yitzchak Hutner’s Pachad Yitzhak (Pesach 74) to study, we quickly descended into the textual landscape wherein I experienced, for the first time, the embodiment of what Rosenzweig called sprachdenken, or speech-thinking.[19] The text, in which Rav Hutner describes the constitutive lack within language, opened the door to the inherent gap between what Levinas refers to as the ‘saying’ and the ‘said’. The evasiveness of the perfect word, the impossibility of speech to say what it truly means to be saying, opened the conversation to various overlaps and influences that jumped out from the text before us. Unbeknownst to me, we had encountered one of the fundamental issues at play in Wolfson’s hermeneutics. What stands out most in my memory, however, is not the depth and fluidity of his thinking, but rather a seemingly insignificant incident that occurred during our learning. Having been asked to read the text, I stumbled with the reading of various words. These were not mistakes, in which the word could be misconstrued for a different out-of-context word; these were slight mispronunciations which in no way affected the meaning of the text. While reading, Wolfson, in his quiet and humble voice corrected my pronunciation to ensure that the word be read carefully and correctly. Only afterwards did I recognize the hyper-focus to detail that Professor Wolfson highlighted in his corrections. It is this insistence on the truth, the guardedness with which he approaches each and every text, which marks Wolfson’s works through and through. This attention, what Benjamin (quoting Malebranche) called “the natural prayer of the soul,” has enabled Wolfson to truly-read as he reads-truly.[20] On another occasion, shortly before he left for the West Coast, I had the merit of accompanying Wolfson on his last pilgrimage to the gravesite of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the ohel. Arriving at the ohel wherein lay the graves of the Rebbe and his predecessor Rav Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson, in what appeared to be a preparatory pause, Wolfson turned around and gazed at the graves of the holy women of Habad, Rebetzeins Chaya Mushka and Shterna . Mid-gaze, Wolfson whispered, “She was the wife of the RaShab.” Those words are what I remember most. Uttered with a sense of melancholic yearning, I believe Wolfson was taken back to a space beyond memory, to a place where thinkers like Shalom Dov-Baer Schneerson walked the earth. After spending some time inside the ohel itself, Menachem and I left to give Professor Wolfson privacy with the giants who so deeply impacted his life’s work. Afterwards we sat down to learn a ma’amar from the RaShab,[21] chosen at random. Learning the text – which was written by the RaShab himself – we continuously came across the notation ve’chu, similar to “etc.,” signifying the absence of some extended textual statement. What bothered Professor Wolfson was that seemingly, everything that needed to be expressed was already written. There was no apparent reason for the text to end in the open- ended manner of ve’chu. As Wolfson later explained to me, “Usually this notation is used as an abbreviation so that one does not have to repeat the conclusion of a biblical verse or a rabbinic dictum. The author assumes that the reader can fill in the unstated text. But in the Habad context this notation refers to the inference that the reader must make from what is stated, not a marker of something previously stated.”[22] Professor Wolfson’s impact on the field on Jewish studies cannot be overstated. In a practical sense, Wolfson has taught and mentored numerous students who have subsequently become significant scholars in the field of Jewish Mysticism.[23] Professor Daniel Abrams, an early Wolfson student, has noted the multifaceted significance of Wolfson’s scholarship as an, “approach to mythopoesis (that) explores such major topics as gender and ontology, entering into dialogue with studies and concepts from philosophy, religious studies (and comparative religions), theology and feminist theory… This history and the various text editions and major studies Wolfson has published in recent years have unfolded into a very complex matrix of methodologies which are unique to his writing and which build upon various disciplines to which few have sufficient access. From rabbinic and kabbalistic anthropology to the ontological and symbolic status of the feminine, Wolfson has shown the tacit assumptions that define the hermeneutic horizons of kabbalistic literature.”[24] In addition, the various themes that mark Wolfson’s scholarship reverberate throughout much of the current literature and scholarship on Jewish mysticism. His constant presence at conferences and various publications testifies to the massive impact he has had in the field. On a more personal level, his vast contribution to the study of Jewish mysticism is twofold. On the one hand, Wolfson has consistently shown a continuous flow of thought, uninterrupted by the temporal fissures between one publication to the next. Indeed, as it will be shown below, one could posit certain ideas that seem to serve as the foundational stone, the even ha-shisiya, throughout all of Professor Wolfson’s scholarship. On the other hand, Wolfson manifests the true rabbinic ideal of creativity, or hiddush within each work, thus creating a stream-of-thought that is coincidental in its opposition as it is oppositional in its coincidence. Regarding the latter aspect of Wolfson’s thought, Professor Jonathan Garb makes note of “[t]he sheer scope of hiddush, of innovation, in theory, in comparative study and in textual analysis, eclipses any sense of continuity. One may say that there are two ideal types of scholars: One who unfold their earlier conceptions, even if in interesting and deep ways, and those who constantly create new domains, thus becoming one of the founders of discourse that Michel Foucault has both described and personified.”[25] In agreement with Garb’s perception of Wolfson’s capacity to unfold new creases within Jewish studies and beyond, I respectfully disagree with the notion that “the sheer scope of hiddush” diminishes, or “eclipses any sense of continuity.” Wolfson’s scholarship is marked by a unique form of radical hermeneutics which creates a repetition that is interrupted by the incessant sense of re-creation.[26] This radical creativity, which includes the grafting together of disciplines ordinarily assumed to be separate and distinct, has- at times- been met with a sense of resistance from others in Wolfson’s field. In a more insidious sense, Professor Wolfson’s work in the field of Jewish mysticism has been met through non-meeting, or what seems to be a conscious repression of the often uncomfortable themes that Wolfson textually uncovers. Recognizing this phenomenon early on in Wolfson’s career, Professor Pinchas Giller wrote: “[t]he focus of Wolfson’s work presents challenges to the status qua of the field, and these challenges have not gone unremarked. In addition to challenging scholarly peers, Wolfson has also consistently rejected the glib, platitudinous understandings of Jewish mythology and symbolism prevalent in work written for popular audiences. This eschewing of cant and easy cliché is consistent with the restless searching spirit evident in his scholarship.”[27] In addition to the challenges Wolfson has engaged other scholars in; his erudition in all areas of Jewish thought has also impacted the reception and engagement with his scholarship. As opposed to the static status many thinkers hold within their area of expertise, Wolfson has consistently crossed the artificial demarcations separating one area from another. Professor Wolfson is equally erudite in modern Hasidic thought – evidenced by his work Open Secret on Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson[28] – as he is in Zoharic scholarship as seen in his numerous articles devoted to questions of origin and the Zohar’s evocative mystical hermeneutics.[29] The dynamic ability to live, simultaneously, in the worlds of Maimonides[30] and Abraham Abulafia,[31] for example, has both elevated and alienated Wolfson from within the static walls of the academy, particularly in Israel. In this regard, Giller wrote: “Few scholars are so brazen as to speak authoritatively about more than one genre or time period. Wolfson seems to have violated the spirit of this social compact. The scope and volume of his writings have been viewed as evidence of a certain presumption, an ambition to rise to eminence without the sanction of Jerusalem.”[32] Although the claim is authentic, namely, that Wolfson’s erudition stretches beyond the temporal limits of one time period or genre, the sense of “presumption” or academic arrogance is unfounded. Both in his scholarship and personal life, Wolfson exudes a certain lived-sense of humility.[33] The nullification of authorial- sense that allows Wolfson to speak through his sources as his sources speak through him is rooted in the modesty that marks both his life and his scholarship. As will be explained below, this modesty is deeply connected to Wolfson’s primary treatment of Jewish mysticism. The dialectic of concealment and disclosure, modesty and expression, reveals the chiasmic[34] sense of concealment as disclosure and disclosure as concealment. To reveal is to occlude that which cannot be disclosed, as concealment is to disclose that which must remain concealed. Wolfson’s work, far from being a “presumptuous” or arrogant expression of erudition, operates as a manifestation of modesty, secrecy and concealment that marks the nature of Jewish mysticism. Another critique aimed at Wolfson’s scholarship is the accusation of philosophical anachronism. The engagement of thinkers temporally removed from the time and space of early kabbalists has led some to claim that Wolfson’s work operates under a certain “obvious charge of anachronism.” In this regard, Wolfson notes that the vast body of his work is contained in “The field of my vision, so to speak, has been leveled, to the degree that is possible, by a focus on kabbalistic sources ranging from the twelfth to the twenty-first centuries, a large temporal swatch by anyone’s account. The use of German and French philosophers primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to interpret texts of traditional kabbalah, whose ideas may be ancient but whose incipient articulation in a Hebrew idiom is to be traced to a rich creative period from the twelfth to fourteenth century, demands a defense against the obvious charge of anachronism.”[35] Regarding this claim, it is appropriate to paraphrase a notion depicted by Reb Zadok HaKohen of Lublin, a nineteenth century Hasidic thinker, regarding the nature of the accusatory gaze.[36] Often when an accusation is leveled against a particular individual, it is assumed that the accusatory claim points to a character defect. Through an act of psychological inversion, however, R. Zadok posits that the accusation- far from pointing to a defect in character- points towards the uniqueness of that individual.[37] This may be applied to Professor Wolfson’s creative capacity of posing thinkers, vastly removed by time and space, in dialogue with one another. The weaving of new constellations between thinkers hitherto unassociated marks Wolfson’s work with polyphonic sprachdenken, or speech-thinking.[38] In this sense, Wolfson has paved new clearings along the path of Jewish mysticism. The utilization of philosophers, poets and religious thinkers from separate domains has given Wolfson the opportunity of translating[39] ancient kabbalistic ideas into a modern academic idiom. Far from the self-serving act of philosophical name-dropping, Wolfson’s engagement with these thinkers is an essential aspect of his thought’s unfolding. Equally erudite in the fields of continental philosophy as he is in Jewish mysticism, the often astonishing ease with which Wolfson weaves through the intertextual landscapes creates a vortex in which the kabbalists speak through the philosophers as the philosophers speak through the kabbalists. Among the various thinkers with whom Wolfson has engaged in the infinite conversation, a select few stand out as constant presences in his scholarship. First and foremost, Martin Heidegger’s philosophy and poetics have served as a speculum through which Wolfson has peered, moving through and beyond the Heideggerian notions of ontology, temporality, language, poetics, eschatology and dialectics of concealment and disclosure. Deeply aware of the controversies surrounding Heidegger’s dishonorable past; Wolfson has engaged the German philosopher’s thought while simultaneously recognizing his personal, political and even philosophical failures.[40] Wolfson has even hinted to the possibility of Heidegger manifesting certain traits of the biblical nemesis of the Jewish people, Balaam.[41] Much like Balaam who blessed the Jewish people through his attempt to curse them, Heidegger’s thought has provided fertile ground for Jewish thinkers, even as he was engaged in an insidious form of anti-Semitism.[42] Emmanuel Levinas is another thinker with whom Wolfson engages in philosophical dialogue, often resulting in the appreciation and acceptance of certain Levinasian notions while concurrently moving beyond the limit of his ethical and ontological premises. Critical of Levinas’s rhetorical and absolute renunciation of Heidegger’s thought, Wolfson clears a middle path through which the demarcations separating Levinas and Heidegger are written under erasure.[43] Another philosophical muse of Wolfson’s is Jacques Derrida. The Jewish father of deconstruction marks the pages of Wolfson’s scholarship, as well as his personal philosophical stance. Derrida’s utilization of James Joyce’s enigmatic statement, “Jewgreek is Greekjew, extremes meet?”[44] has given Wolfson a predecessor in his chiasmic dance of exclusion as inclusion and distance as closeness.[45] Derrida’s discussions on language, writing, absence, and negative theology have deeply influenced Wolfson’s scholarship.[46] In particular, the notion of the Derridian differance, or trace – a presence that is present through absence as it is absent through presence- has played a significant role in Wolfson’s development of such topics as zimzum and secrecy that play a central role in the Jewish mystical tradition. Professor Wolfson has stated that the Derridian trace plays a key and central role throughout most of his philosophical hermeneutics.[47] In addition to the philosophical themes wherein these thinkers overlap, the sociopolitical critiques that Derrida has leveled against Western ontotheology have impacted Wolfson’s approach to the Jewish mystical tradition. The area in which this is most apparent is Wolfson’s claim that Jewish mystical texts and traditions operate within a closed, phallocentric system.[48] Echoing Derrida’s claim that Western thought has consistently worked within the economy of binary oppositions, while simultaneously privileging the masculine sense of presence and speech over the more feminized forms of absence and writing, Wolfson sees the Jewish mystical tradition as being a phallocentric discourse spoken through the mouths of male mystics. Wolfson has received much attention, not always positive, as a result of his stance.[49] Numerous scholars have attempted to take Wolfson to task, claiming that Jewish mysticism gives precedence to the feminine aspect of the Godhead, namely the shkina, and thus manifests a certain mystical feminism in which the patriarchal sense of privileging the masculine is overturned.[50] As Wolfson points out, the masculine in Jewish mystical texts represents the capacity to overflow, while the feminine reflects the passive capacity to receive. In this regard, Wolfson utilizes various thinkers within the French feminist movement, first and foremost the thought of the psychoanalyst and philosopher, Luce Irigaray, to elucidate his stance on gender-valence. Quite aware of the source material in which Jewish mystical texts apply an elevated, eschatological notion to the feminine, Wolfson has consistently pointed out that the inversion of hierarchal status is not equivalent to the undoing of essentialist and binary views of gender. While the feminine may be elevated to its initial space of origin, in the spirit of the rabbinic dictum, “a woman of valor is the crown of her husband,” implying an overcoming of the diminution of the feminine vis-à-vis the masculine, the feminine is still endowed with masculine traits, thus maintaining the hierarchal status of gender even in its collapsing. While Wolfson is aware of the difficulty in accepting such an essentialist approach to gender performativity in the Jewish mystical tradition, he has stressed the need of critically analyzing texts through their anthropological and philological counterparts.[51] It is important to note, however, that while affirming the masculine-oriented nature of the tradition, Wolfson is by no means closing the text off beyond any redemptive stance. In his later work,[52] Wolfson has shown that certain Jewish texts do clear a path through which the patriarchal, male-dominant notions inherent within the Jewish mystical tradition can be overcome. This eschatological advent of an undifferentiated state of non-duality, in which the feminine is no longer considered other, due to the fact that the masculine loses its privileged stance as the same, is rooted in the highest manifestation of the Divine-Plemora, namely Reisha-d’lo-ityada, or the unknown, or unknowable head. It is here, in this yet undefined state, not due to lack of definition, but rather inherently tied up in its own indefinability, that the promise of redemption lays. In order to understand Wolfson’s concentration on the nature of the feminine, and the totalized system of Jewish mystical thought which appears to operate within a patriarchal framework, one needs to view his scholarly contributions through the lens of his personal and philosophical attitudes. In this sense it is important to note the comments of Professor David Novak, in which he stated: “I have been trying to goad Elliot Wolfson, whom I consider to be the most philosophically interesting of today’s kabbalah scholars, into explicating kabbalah philosophically, that is, doing when speaking in the first person, because a philosopher has to speak in the first person. A philosopher has to say, “‘This is what I think is true.’ Wolfson’s explication of kabbalah is philosophical, but it has to be stated more clearly in his own voice, rather than in the voice or voices of his sources.”[53] Although I categorically disagree with Novak’s claim that “a philosopher has to speak in the first person,” or that Wolfson’s thought need be “stated more clearly in his own voice,” the notion that Wolfson renders kabbalah in a philosophical key, as well as philosophy through a kabbalistic key is noteworthy. Throughout Wolfson’s writings, one senses a personal journey- perhaps even a wandering – through the labyrinthine pathways of text, context and pretext.[54] Grafting together thinkers, divided by the fissures of temporal sway, Wolfson allows his “still small voice” to murmur beneath the magnificent edifices he erects. This voice, pregnant with a suffering unique to the mystical-hermeneutical quest, dances between the black and white fires that have become Wolfson’s plaything. The delicate balance between Wolfson’s personal, philosophical outlook and the scholarly body-of-text creates a third, wholly new path within the field of Jewish mysticism. Returning to the emphasis on the role of the feminine in Jewish mysticism, one theme- erupting from the silent voice- marks the pages of Wolfson’s scholarship, namely- an ethically and ontologically driven concern for the other. In Wolfson’s own words: “If I were to isolate a current running through the different studies, it would be the search to resolve the ontological problem of identity and difference, a philosophic matter that has demanded much attention in various contemporary intellectual currents, to wit, literary criticism, gender studies, post-colonial theory, social anthropology, just to name a few examples. Indeed, it is possible to say, with no exaggeration intended, that there has been a quest at the heart of my work to understand the other, to heed and discern the alterity of alterity…What has inspired the quest for me has been the discernment on the part of the kabbalists that the ultimate being-becoming becoming being- nameless one known through the ineffable name, yhwh- transcends oppositional binaries, for, in the one that is beyond the difference of being one or the other, light is dark, black is white, night is day, male is female, Adam is .”[55] Wolfson’s concern for the other, the subject removed from the philosopher’s gaze, transcends the everyday concern for the sociopolitical standing of various groups. Disquieted by the hierarchies of power on a practical level,[56] Wolfson sees the othering of the other as a symptom of a more fundamental, philosophical issue. The feminine, for Wolfson, speaks for all that which has been relegated to the margins of alterity. These specters of presence, repressed by Western ontotheological discourse, have engaged Wolfson in a lifelong quest to disclose that which has been concealed from sight. Operating from within the position of kabbalistic texts, Wolfson has shown that “the ontological problem of identity and difference” rests at the center of the Jewish mystical tradition. Whether it is the dialectic of zimzum which discloses through concealment as it conceals through disclosure; the contradictory essence of thesefirot that operate concurrently as the finitude-of-infinity and the infinity-of-finitude; the eschatological hope for the advent of the messiah that is disclosed-through-its-foreclosure as it is foreclosed-through-its-disclosure; the speaking of the Name that is no-Name that may only be spoken through non-speaking; or the duality of secrecy that is secret-in-exposure as it is exposed-in-secret; Wolfson clears a path in which the identity of the same can only take root through the difference of the other, and vice versa. It is important to note, that although Wolfson employs a certain dialectical logic to highlight the oppositional relation between one thing and its other, by no means does he allow the dialectical pressure to find relief in a totalized synthesis. Like many philosophers engaged with continental or post-modernist thought, Wolfson is no longer comfortable relying on transcendentally prescribed truths, or “meta-narratives” to enclose the open-endedness of thought in the post-Hegelian epoch.[57] In contradistinction to many self- proclaimed post-Hegelian’s, however, Wolfson’s disavowal of the “synthesis which reconciles the two” does not stem simply from an external adherence to the populist philosophical zeitgeist. Rather, Wolfson’s insistence on keeping the dialectical movement in play stems from uncovering the limit of thought in which the identity-of-difference can only be expressed through the difference-of-identity. In other words, the divergent paths of separation may only unite through the separateness of their divergence. In this space of the excluded middle, each thing and its other remain distinct, with neither pole swallowing its other in an act of metaphysical violence. This limit of thought as Wolfson notes,[58] is representative of, “‘the mystery of the light of infinity’- which is predicated on the supposition that A and not-A are the same in virtue of their difference, or…shnei hafakhim be-nose ehad, ‘two opposites in one subject’.” Viewed in this light, Wolfson enters into, “the scandal of thecoicidentia oppositourm such that the Yes can become a No and the No, a Yes, not by way of conflation but by juxtaposition, the disappearance of the very possibility of difference in the nonidentity of the identity of opposites; that is, opposites are identical by virtue of their opposition.”[59] It is at this limit-of-thought which is simultaneously the thought-of-limit where Wolfson sees the root of the mystical experience, or in the language of Maurice Blanchot, ‘the limit experience’.[60] To enter into this paradoxical ‘place that is no place’[61] where opposites coincide in their opposition, Wolfson travels ‘a path from the side’ in which the necessary delimitations of logic are necessarily circumvented. In this sense, one may locate Wolfson’s thought within the sefirotic-space of keter, the super-rational will, or desire in which limits collapse while paradoxically upholding their limitations. Seen through the (dark)light of keter, Wolfson’s feverish[62] obsession with Nothingness becomes an essential aspect of his thinking, as well as lived-experience.[63] In the space of a Nothing that is a something that is no-thing, the normative, restrictive nature of language and thought must be transgressed. This transgression, however, is not a simple disavowal of language and thought, rather- it is the movement through and beyond the limit of these phenomenological modes-of-being. The dialectical play of keter – in which Nothing and Something, Ayin and Yesh, coincide so that the something-of-nothing, Atik Yomin, becomes the nothing-of-something, Arich Anpin – enables Wolfson to speak through the nothingness-of-language which is concurrently the language-of-nothingness, as he thinks imaginatively through imaginative-thinking. In other words, as opposed to the normative response to that which transcends identification, namely the Wittgensteinian ‘not-speaking’, Wolfson engages in a hermeneutics of ‘speaking-not’.[64] Deeply aware of language’s limit, Wolfson speaks through language towards its (n)ever receding horizon, thus transforming the nihilistic tendency of language’s shattering into an affirmation of that that which can never be affirmed.[65] The same can be said regarding Wolfson’s approach to rational thinking. Operating within the Aristotelian laws-of-logic, the Western ontotheological tradition has engraved a deep boundary separating that which can be thought and that which transcends the human capacity of thought. Wolfson, however, reaching the limit of thoughts interiority, “breaks on through to the other side,” wandering into the recesses of exteriorities (un)thought space. At the threshold, Wolfson relinquishes the bonds of ‘mental slavery’ and enters the luminous space of imaginal thinking.[66] Wolfson’s imaginative faculty enables him to think otherwise, beyond positivistic and perceivable reality. However, Wolfson’s approach to imagination – much like his approach to language – is far more complex than the mere denial of rational thought’s efficacy. Rigorously avoiding the fantastical flight into irrationality, Wolfson’s imaginal gleanings are marked by a strict set of laws, thus enabling the paradoxical play of imaginative-thinking and thinking- imaginatively. Similar to a dream in which the imaginary is grounded by the factual as the factual is grounded by the imaginary, Wolfson’s hermeneutics transform the black and white texts into a polyphonic expression of all that remains inexpressible. Arriving again at the beginning, we can now comment on an essential aspect of Wolfson’s life-work, that is, the two forms of expression that walk along the path of his scholarship. The poetic hermeneutics that mark Wolfson’s theoretical work manifest, suddenly “with the turn of a breath” in his personal poetry.[67] In the ruins of language, Wolfson finds the openings through which his poetic breath may enter. Following in the trace of the poet Paul Celan, Wolfson speaks ‘every word through destruction’. The poems, often times difficult to read- not due to their opacity, but rather, due to the imaginal stirrings that are evoked- are an embodiment of the rabbinic idiom, “miut ha-machazik et ha- meruba,” the diminutive that encompasses the enormous. The exilic nature of the poems leads the reader down the path that is no path, into the silent and lonely clearing where presence and absence dance. Reading Wolfson’s poetics along the furrows of his scholarship enables the reader to behold the embodied nature of Wolfson’s lived- thought. Along with his poetry, Wolfson is a seasoned artist whose paintings have been featured at various showings.[68] If poetry is the response to language’s limit, art is born from within rationalities foreclosure. Wolfson’s paintings depict the evanescence of color, the fleetingness of forms that get caught in the horizon of the frame. The kol of Wolfson’s poetics and the ohr of his aesthetics escort his philosophical hermeneutics into the space of the mystical experience. Much like Wolfson’s triadic expression of scholarship, poetics and aesthetics, the written or marked space can only take the reader so far. The reader must engage with the texts through an act of hermeneutical inquisitiveness, opening themselves to what murmurs beneath the surface of the text. In this sense Elliot R. Wolfsons’s work not only opens upon a new path, but beckons the reader to join him. Notes: [1] The title of this essay, “Dorshei Yichudcha,” is taken from the Ana BeKoach prayer attributed to R. Nechunya ben HaKanah. Translated by Louis Jacobs as “Seeker of Unity,” this appellation is easily applied to Professor Elliot R. Wolfson. The full context of this phrase in the prayer is as follows, “nah gibor dorshei yichudcha ki-vavat shamrem” (“please protect the seekers of Your unity like the apple of Your eye”). In his monograph on the Hasidic mystic R. Aaron haLevi Horowitz of Starosselje, “The Seeker of Unity,” Louis Jacobs records from R. Chaim Meir Hillman’s Beis Rebbe (1:26 fn.1) that when R. Dov Ber Schneerson, the Mitteler Rebbe of Habad would repeat this verse, he would have his dear friend and study partner, R. Aaron haLevi in mind. The reason, explained R. Dov Ber was because R. Aaron delves so deeply into the secret of faith, “the raza di-meheimanusa,” to the point where the demarcations of reality and Godliness dissolve. See Louis Jacobs, Seeker of Unity: The Life and Works of Aaron of Starosselje(London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1966), 7. See also Immanuel Etkes, “The War of Lyady Succession: R. Aaron Halevi versus R. Dov Baer,” Polin 25 (2013): 93-133. “Dorshei,” from the root darash, represents the hermeneutical quest, the textual journey into that which lay within the words themselves. “Yichudcha,” from the root yichud, represents the unity of all, the source beneath the fragmentation of things that unites all that is different within the difference-of-unity. The hermeneutical path that seeks to uncover the unity of all is a proper description of Elliot R. Wolfson’s life and work. [2] Tanya, Chapter Twenty-Three. [3] Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, trans. Seán Hand (London: The Athlone Press, 1990), 181. [4] (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). [5] (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014). [6] A complete listing of his articles and book chapters are available on his personal website here, as well as here. [7] See Elliot R. Wolfson,Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Press, 2009), xii-xiii, where Wolfson recounts a conversation held between himself and an older Lubavitcher Hasid at 770 Eastern Parkway regarding the significance of this birthdate. Wolfson quotes the Hasid as ending the conversation with, “Pay attention, this day bears your destiny.” [8] Amongst all streams of Jewish thought, it is possible to say that Habad Hasidus has played one of the most significant roles in Wolfson’s thought. His Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009) is considered by many the authoritative and definitive work on the role of kabbalah in the late Lubavitcher Rebbe’s thought and political/theological weichenstellung. See as well Elliot R. Wolfson, “Revisioning the Body Apophatically: Incarnation and the Acosmic Naturalism of Habad Hasidism,” in Chris Boesel, and Catherine Keller, eds., Apophatic Bodies: Negative Theology, Incarnation, and Relationality (Fordham: Fordham University Press, 2010), 147-199. For his in-depth discussion on the fifth rebbe of Habad, R. Sholom Dov Ber Schneerson’s thought, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Nequddat ha- Reshimu-The Trace of Transcendence and Transcendence of the Trace: The Paradox of Simsum in the RaShaB’s Hemshekh Ayin Beit,” Kabbalah 30 (2013): 75-120. [9] Rabbi Wilfred Wolfson was an early student of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman at Yeshivas Ner Yisrael ( (Ner Israel Rabbinical College), Baltimore, in the 1940’s. According to his son, Rabbi Wolfson was the first rabbinic student from Ner Israel to be given permission to attend Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Professor William Foxwell Albright. See Wilfred Wolfson, “Review of William Foxwell Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine,” The Jewish Horizon (March 1950): 18. Rabbi Wilfred Wolfson served as the longtime rabbi of Congregation Sha’arei Tefillah in Brooklyn and was a popular Rosh Yeshivah at Yeshiva University/BTA in Brooklyn. Upon his death, Rabbi Wilfred Wolfson’s collection of seforim was sent to the library at Ner Israel. [10] Interview With Elliot R. Wolfson, July 25, 2012, in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, eds., Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 195. [11] Rabbi Zvi Aryeh Rosenfeld is the one who is single-handedly responsible for introducing the teachings of Breslov on the American scene from the 1950s until his death in 1978. [12] Email correspondence with Elliot R. Wolfson (16 July 2015). Teachings from Rav Kook, Ramchal, and Maharal are to be found throughout Wolfson’s work. [13] Interview With Elliot R. Wolfson, July 25, 2012, in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, eds., Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 196. For his recent (and extensive) treatment of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s thought, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Eternal Duration and Temporal Compresence: The Influence of Habad on Joseph B. Soloveitchik,” in Michael Zank and Ingrid Anderson, eds., The Value of the Particular: Lessons from Judaism and the Modern Jewish Experience – Festschrift for Steven T. Katz on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 196-238. [14] See Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011), in which he dedicates the work, “To the memory of Edith Wyschogrod, for showing me the way to the way of nonshowing.” Wolfson adds the evocative Latin phrase, “somnium somnia quasi semper vives. Vive quasi hodie moriebar – ‎Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.” For his extensive treatment of Wyschogrod’s thought, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 201-227. For Wolfson’s earlier work on Wyschogrod, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Apophasis and the Trace of Transcendence: Wyschogrod’s Contribution to a Postmodern Jewish Immanent A/theology,” Philosophy Today 55:4 (Winter 2011): 328-347; and for his article published in a memorial festschrift for Wyschogrod, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Kenotic Overflow and Temporal Transcendence: Angelic Embodiment and the Alterity of Time in Abraham Abulafia,” in Eric Boynton and Martin Kavka, eds., Saintly Influence: Edith Wyschogrod and the Possibilities of Philosophy of Religion (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009), 113-149. [15] Wolfson published the following essays in honor of his doctoral advisors, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Mystical Rationalization of the Commandments in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia,” in Alfred L. Ivry, Elliot R. Wolfson & Allan Arkush, eds., Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism [=Alexander Altmann Memorial Volume] (Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 311-360; Elliot R. Wolfson, “Female Imaging of the Torah: From Literary Metaphor to Religious Symbol,” in , Ernest S. Frerichs, and Nahum M. Sarna, eds., From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism, Intellect In Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, vol. 2 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 271-307; Elliot R. Wolfson, “‘Sage Is Preferable to Prophet’: Revisioning Midrashic Imagination,” in Deborah A. Green and Laura S. Lieber, eds., Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination: A Festschrift in Honor of Michael Fishbane (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 186-210. [16] Email correspondence with Elliot R. Wolfson (16 July 2015). Wolfson’s response confirmed the approached first taken by Professor Altmann in his earliest essay, in Alexander Altmann, “Das Verhältnis Maimunis zur jüdischen Mystik,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, 80 Jahrgang (1936): 305-330 (German), which appeared in English translation in Alexander Altmann, “Maimonides’ Attitude toward Jewish Mysticism,” Alfred Jospe, ed., Studies in Jewish Thought: An Anthology of German Jewish Scholarship (: Wayne State University Press, 1981), 200-219. See Lawrence Fine, “Alexander Altmann’s Contribution to the Study of Jewish Mysticism,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 34:1 (1989): 421-431, as well as Wolfson’s extensive discussion on the Maimonidean secret in Elliot R. Wolfson, Abraham Abulafia — Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy and Theurgy (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2000). [17] Elliot R. Wolfson, The Book of the Pomegranate: Moses de Leon’s Sefer ha-Rimmon (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). About this edition, Daniel Abrams has written: “No Hebrew word processing paragraph today can link the base-text to the line numbers of the edition, to the variant readings and to the editor’s notes. Such linkage has to be done manually. See the most complex page layout of any camera-ready edition prepared by a single scholar in the field of Jewish mysticism: Elliot Wolfson’s The Book of the Pomegranate.” See Daniel Abrams, Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory: Methodologies of Textual Scholarship and Editorial Practice in the Study of Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2010), 69n169. [18] I would like to thank yedidi Reb Menachem Butler for his help in preparing this essay. More importantly, Menachem has played a uniquely important role in my life, opening space for relationships otherwise inaccessible. Echoing the sentiment expressed to me by Professor Michael Fishbane shlita, Menachem is a shadchan in the truest sense of the word, uniting worlds otherwise disparate. The indelible mark Menachem has imparted onto and into the world of Torah and Jewish studies is unparalleled. It is through Menachem that I came to meet Professor Wolfson, and through Menachem is this essay possible. [19] See below for Wolfson’s usage of Rosenzweigian sprachdenken. [20] See Walter Benjamin, “Franz Kafka,” trans. Harry Zohn, in Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith, eds., Selected Writings, vol. 2, 1927-1934 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 812. [21] I do not recall the exact ma’amar studied, but the topic was the paradoxical nature of simsum in which concealment is disclosed through the disclosure of concealment. [22] Email correspondence with Elliot R. Wolfson (17 July 2015). [23] Among the numerous students Wolfson has supervised, Professors Daniel Abrams, Jonathan Dauber and Hartley Lachter have become scholars of Jewish Mysticism, often building upon the themes in Wolfson’s work. See, for example, Daniel Abrams, The Female Body of God in Kabbalistic Literature: Embodied Forms of Love and Sexuality in the Divine Feminine (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2004); Jonathan Dauber, Knowledge of God and the Development of Early Kabbalah (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Hartley Lachter, Kabbalistic Revolution: Reimagining Judaism in Medieval Spain (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015), and others. Aside from his official students, Wolfson has mentored various scholars in the field as well. [24] Daniel Abrams, Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory: Methodologies of Textual Scholarship and Editorial Practice in the Study of Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2010), 13-14. [25] Jonathan Garb, “In Honor of Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream,” NYU-Humanities Initiative (28 February 2012), available online here. [26] This sense of radical hermeneutics is borrowed from John D. Caputo, Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction and The Hermeneutic Project (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987) and on his usage of this terminology, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 473fn27. [27] See Pinchas Giller, “Elliot Wolfson and the Study of Kabbalah in the Wake of Scholem,” Religious Studies Review 25:1 (January 1999): 23-28. [28] Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). [29] For a compilation of Wolfson’s work on the Zohar, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings from Zoharic Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007). Regarding the importance of Wolfson’s Zoharic scholarship see, Daniel Abrams, Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory: Methodologies of Textual Scholarship and Editorial Practice in the Study of Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2010): 132-133, 353-359. [30] On Maimonides, see, Elliot R. Wolfson, “Beneath the Wings of the Great Eagle: Maimonides and Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah,” in Görge K. Hasselhoff and Otfried Fraisse, eds., Moses Maimonides (1138-1204): His Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Wirkungsgeschichte in Different Cultural Contexts (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2004), 209-237; and regarding the impact of Maimonidean negative theology on early Jewish mysticism, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Negative Theology and Positive Assertion in the Early Kabbalah,” Da’at 32-33 (1994): V-XXII (English); Elliot R. Wolfson, “Via Negativa in Maimonides and Its Impact on Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah,” Maimonidean Studies 5 (2008): 363-412. For a recent discussion on the Maimonidean influence on the Neo-Kantianism of Hermann Cohen, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania(New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 14-33. [31] On Abraham Abulafia, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Abraham Abulafia—Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy (Los Angeles: Cherub Press. 2000). [32] See Pinchas Giller, “Elliot Wolfson and the Study of Kabbalah in the Wake of Scholem,” Religious Studies Review 25:1 (January 1999): 23-28. [33] For an extensive treatment of humility in Jewish thought, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Morality and Law in Kabbalistic Mysticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 286-316. See also the brief letter by Rav Aryeh Kaplan, “The Humility of God,” The Jewish Press (27 January 1967): 45, called to my attention by Menachem Butler. Regarding modesty as the prerequisite for truly engaging Jewish mystical texts, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “From Sealed Book to Open Text: Time, Memory, and Narrativity in Kabbalistic Hermeneutics,” in Steven Kepnes, ed., Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age (New York University Press, 1995), 145-178; and Elliot R. Wolfson, “Secrecy, Modesty, and the Feminine: Kabbalistic Traces in the Thought of Levinas,” in Kevin Hart and Michael A. Signer, eds., The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas Between Jews and Christians (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), 52-73. [34] On the usage of poetic-chiasmus in Wolfson’s work, a motif that can be found countless times throughout his oeuvre, see Aaron W. Hughes, “Elliot R. Wolfson: An Intellectual Portrait,” in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, eds., Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1-33. [35] See the prologue “Timeswerve/Hermeneutic Reversibility,” in Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), xv-xxxi, where he combats the claim of anachronism through an in-depth depiction of hermeneutical temporality; Elliot R. Wolfson, Wolfson, Alef, , Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth and Death (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 1-55. For a similar approach to this issue, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Structure, Innovation, and Diremptive Temporality: The Use of Models to Study Continuity and Discontinuity in Kabbalistic Tradition,” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 6:18 (2007): 143-167. See the comments of Sergey Dolgopolski, The Open Past: Subjectivity and Remembering in the Talmud (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 342fn6. [36] On Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin, see the various scholarly studies by Professor Yaakov Elman, which are all noted in Dovid Bashevkin, “In Your Anger, Please Mercifully Publish My Work: An Honest Account of a Contemporary Jewish Publishing Odyssey” the Seforim blog (26 June 2015), availablehere , and earlier in Dovid Bashevkin, “Perpetual Prophecy: An Intellectual Tribute to Reb Zadok ha-Kohen of Lublin on his 110th Yahrzeit,” (with an appendix entitled: “The World as a Book: Religious Polemic, Hasidei Ashkenaz, and the Thought of Reb Zadok,”), the Seforim blog (18 August 2010), available here. [37] See Tzidkat ha-Tzadik, no. 70. [38] Regarding Wolfson’s usage of Rosenzweigian sprachdenken, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Introduction,” to Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. Barbara E. Galli (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), xvii-xx. See as well, Elliot R. Wolfson, “Foreword,” to Yudit Kornberg Greenberg, Better Than Wine: Love, Poetry, and Prayer in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), xi-xii. For an extensive treatment on Rosenzweig’s thought, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 34-89. For an earlier approach see, Elliot R. Wolfson, “Facing the Effaced: Mystical Eschatology and the Idealistic Orientation in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig,” Zeitschrift für Neure Theologiegeschichte 4 (1997): 39-81. See, as well, Elliot R. Wolfson, “Light Does Not Talk but Shines: Apophasis and Vision in Rosenzweig’s Theopoetic Temporality,” in Aaron W. Hughes and Elliot R. Wolfson, eds., New Directions in (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 87-148. [39] Regarding the central role translation as a hermeneutic form of interpretation, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 1-45. For an earlier approach, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Lying on the Path: Translation and the Transport of Sacred Texts,” AJS Perspectives 3 (2001): 8-13. For the influence of Hans Georg-Gademer’s interpretation theory on Wolfson’s thought, see, Elliot R. Wolfson, Pathwings: Philosophic and Poetic Reflections on the Hermeneutics of Time and Language (Barrytown, NY: Barrytown/Station Hill Press, 2004), 227-233. [40] Regarding Heidegger’s Nazism, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination(New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 420fn241 and for a recent approach to the publications of Heidegger’s infamous “Black Notebooks,” see the interview with Elliot R. Wolfson by Aubrey Glazer, “What does Heidegger’s Anti-Semitism mean for Jewish Philosophy?” Religion Dispatches (3 April 2014), online here. For a similar approach deeply influenced by Wolfson’s thought, see Michael Fagenblat, “The Thing that Scares Me Most: Heidegger’s anti-Semitism and the Return to Zion,” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 14:1 (Fall 2014), 8-24. For an earlier attempt to reconcile Heidegger’s thought with Jewish thought, see, Marlène Zarader, The Unthought Debt: Heidegger and the Hebraic Heritage (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006) and Jean-Francois Lyotard, Heidegger and ‘the Jews’, trans. Andreas Michel and Mark Roberts (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990). Regarding Wolfson’s engagement with Heidegger, see Aaron W. Hughes, “Elliot R. Wolfson: An Intellectual Portrait,” in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, eds., Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1-33. See also the multi-page-footnote in Elliot R. Wolfson, “Eternal Duration and Temporal Compresence: The Influence of Habad on Joseph B. Soloveitchik,” in Michael Zank and Ingrid Anderson, eds., The Value of the Particular: Lessons from Judaism and the Modern Jewish Experience – Festschrift for Steven T. Katz on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 208-212fn37. It would be difficult to speak of all the places in which Wolfson engages Heidegger’s thought, however see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Not Yet Now: Speaking of the End and the End of Speaking,” in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, eds., Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 127-193; and Elliot R. Wolfson, “Undoing the (K)not of Apophaticism: A Heideggerian Afterthought,” in Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 227-260. The specific impact Heidegger’s thought has had on Wolfson will be discussed in a future essay. [41] Elliot R. Wolfson, “Achronic Time, Messianic Expectation, and the Secret of the Leap in Ḥabad,” in Jonatan Meir and Gadi Sagiv, eds., Habad Hasidisim: History, Theology and Image (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, forthcoming in 2016), 27fn28. [42] On Heidegger’s impact on Jewish thinkers, see Richard Wolin, Heidegger’s Children: Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). [43] See Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 90-154; Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 32-38, 297-302fn59-74; and Elliot R. Wolfson,Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 251-252. For an earlier approach to the influence of Jewish mysticism on the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Secrecy, Modesty, and the Feminine: Kabbalistic Traces in the Thought of Levinas,” in Kevin Hart and Michael A. Signer, eds., The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas Between Jews and Christians (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), 52-73. See also Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination(New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 432fn362. The specific impact that Levinas’s thought has had on Wolfson’s will be discussed in a future essay. [44] On Derrida’s Jewishness and the Jewishness of Derrida, see John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 230-263; see Bettina Bergo, Joseph Cohen, and Raphael Zagury-Orly, eds., Judeities: Questions for Jacques Derrida (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007); Gideon Ofrat, The Jewish Derrida, trans. Peretz Kidron (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2001); Geoffrey Bennington and Jacques Derrida, Jacques Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 292-297. For Derrida’s own treatment of the Jewishness of his thought, see Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); and Geoffrey Bennington and Jacques Derrida, Jacques Derrida (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). [45] Wolfson utilizes the Derridian notion of inclusion-through-exclusion to describe his relationship with the organized aspect of Jewish religion. While this dialectic of presence/absence demands a more significant treatment, see Wolfson’s autobiographical comments in Elliot R. Wolfson by Aubrey Glazer, “What does Heidegger’s Anti- Semitism mean for Jewish Philosophy?” Religion Dispatches (3 April 2014), online here; and Interview With Elliot R. Wolfson, July 25, 2012, in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, eds., Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2015). For an exhaustive treatment of antinomianism and hypernomianism as it relates to the Jewish mystical tradition see, Elliot R. Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Morality and Law in Kabbalistic Mysticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). [46] On Derrida, see Elliot R. Wolfson,Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 155-200. For an earlier approach on the influence of kabbalah on Derrida’s thought, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Assaulting the Border: Kabbalistic Traces in the Margins of Derrida,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70:3 (September 2002): 475-514. For an analysis of Derrida’s famous phrase, “there is nothing outside of the text,” see Elliot R. Wolfson, “From Sealed Book to Open Text: Time, Memory, and Narrativity in Kabbalistic Hermeneutics,” in Steven Kepnes, ed., Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age (New York University Press, 1995), 145-178. [47] In private discussion with the author. [48] Regarding the role of gender in Jewish mysticism, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). Aside from the essays compiled in this volume, Wolfson has continued to devote much time and effort to this aspect of his scholarship, see for example, Elliot R. Wolfson, “Woman—The Feminine As Other in Theosophic Kabbalah: Some Philosophical Observations on the Divine Androgyne,” in Lawrence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn, eds., The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity(New York: New York University Press, 1994), 166-204; Elliot R. Wolfson, “Crossing Gender Boundaries in Kabbalistic Ritual and Myth,” in Mortimer Ostow, Ultimate Intimacy: The Psychodynamics of Jewish Mysticism (London: Karnac Books, 1995), 255-337; and Elliot R. Wolfson, “Occultation of the Feminine and the Body of Secrecy in Medieval Kabbalah,” in Elliot R. Wolfson, ed., Rending the Veil: Concealment and Revelation of Secrets in the History of Religions (New York and London: Seven Bridges Press, 1999), 113-154. Many more sources could be cited. [49] Wolfson has responded to the various critics of his stance in numerous places within his scholarship. See for example, Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 439fn65; Elliot R. Wolfson, Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings from Zoharic Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), 254fn26; Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 136, 486fn191; Elliot R. Wolfson, Pathwings: Philosophic and Poetic Reflections on the Hermeneutics of Time and Language (Barrytown, NY: Barrytown/Station Hill Press, 2004), 248fn53; and most recently in Elliot R. Wolfson, “Patriarchy and the Motherhood of God in Zoharic Kabbalah and Meister Eckhart,” in Ra’anan S. Boustan, et al., eds.,Envisioning Judaism: Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, vol. 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 1049-1088, esp. 1058-1059fn30. [50] See for example, Arthur Green, “Kabbalistic Re-Vision: A Review Article of Elliot Wolfson’s Through a Speculum That Shines,” History of Religions 36:3 (February 1997): 265-274; Melila Hellner-Eshed, A River Flows from Eden: The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 347-356. [51] See Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 1-45. [52] See Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 200-223; for the most recent explication of Wolfson’s stance on this issue, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Phallic Jewissance and the Pleasure of No Pleasure” (forthcoming in 2015). It is important to note that this is a rudimentary treatment of one of the more complex areas in Wolfson’s thought. The potential capacity of undoing the gender-valence inherent within the mystical tradition has yet to be fully unfolded. This will be addressed in a future essay. [53] Interview with David Novak, in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, David Novak: Natural Law and Revealed Torah (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 118-119. [54] On the significance of walking/wandering in Jewish mystical thought, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Walking as a Sacred Duty: Theological Transformation of Social Reality in Early Hasidism,” in Ada Rapoport-Albert, ed., Hasidism Reappraised (London: Littman Library, 1997), 180-207. [55] Elliot R. Wolfson, Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings from Zoharic Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007), xvi. For an extended treatment of this theme, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 46-111. See also Elliot R. Wolfson, “Ontology, Alterity, and Ethics in Kabbalistic Anthropology,” Exemplaria 12:1 (January 2000): 129-155. [56] Wolfson has consistently avoided engaging current sociopolitical issues in his scholarship. This stems from a focus on the subterranean themes of the dynamic as opposed to the symptomatic expression of current events. [57] See Elliot R. Wolfson, “Not Yet Now: Speaking of the End and the End of Speaking,” in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, eds., Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 182. [58] Elliot R. Wolfson, “Nequddat ha-Reshimu-The Trace of Transcendence and Transcendence of the Trace: The Paradox of Simsum in the RaShaB’s Hemshekh Ayin Beit,” Kabbalah 30 (2013): 92, and for an in-depth analysis of this (non)logic, see 92-98. It is possible to say that this form of logic that is not one, the middle excluded by the formal laws of logic, rests at the center of Wolfson’s thinking. This logic inherent to Wolfson’s treatment of Jewish Mysticism – in which the identity of opposites is affirmed by the opposite of identity- is inspired in part by the logic of the Middle Path, or ‘the logic of not’ expressed in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. See Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 109-114, 247-250; Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 179-219; Elliot R. Wolfson, Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth and Death (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 158-170; Elliot R. Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Morality and Law in Kabbalistic Mysticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 170-176, 232-247. [59] Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), xxiii. [60] Wolfson expands on this notion in a lecture at the historic Rothko Chapel in Houston, “The Path Beyond the Path: Mysticism and the Spiritual Quest for Universal Singularity,” delivered on 7 April 2011), available online here. See as well, Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 288-289. [61] See Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 233-234. [62] The usage of the word ‘feverish’ is inspired by the Derridian notion of fever as unending memory of the immemorial futurity; see Jacques Derrida,Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). [63] The topic of Nothingness is found too frequently throughout Wolfson’s scholarship to source exhaustively; for example, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Nihilating Nonground and the Temporal Sway of Becoming: kabbalisticly envisioning nothing beyond nothing,” Angelaki 17:3 (2012): 31-45; Elliot R. Wolfson, “Negative Theology and Positive Assertion in the Early Kabbalah,” Da’at 32-33 (1994): V-XXII (English); Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 75-82, 113-115; Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania(New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 75-87; Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 173-186; Elliot R. Wolfson, Venturing Beyond: Morality and Law in Kabbalistic Mysticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 212-215; Elliot R. Wolfson, Wolfson, Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth and Death (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 36-39, 167-168, 234fn12; and Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 229-239. [64] See Elliot R. Wolfson, “Nihilating Nonground and the Temporal Sway of Becoming: kabbalisticly envisioning nothing beyond nothing,” Angelaki 17:3 (2012): 31-45. [65] To condense Wolfson’s thought on language into a paragraph, or even a footnote is as impossible as it is improper. Few thinkers have engaged in the linguistic path of (un)showing the limit of language while simultaneously utilizing language in its own disavowal, as Wolfson has. Speaking from within and beyond the philosophers of language, including but not limited to Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Levinas, Blanchot, Celan, Buber, Foucault, Jabes, Kristeva, and Lacan; Wolfson has uncovered new, impossible vistas in which the hermeneutics of language may be thought anew. To attempt a listing of Wolfson’s thought on language would be to miss the liminal nature of what can properly be called “Wolfsonian Language.” For an introduction, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 1-44. [66] The primacy of imagination in Wolfson’s scholarship has already been noted in Aaron W. Hughes, “Elliot R. Wolfson: An Intellectual Portrait,” in Hava Tirosh Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes, eds., Elliot R. Wolfson: Poetic Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1-33. See as well Jeffrey J. Kripal, “The Mystical Mirror of Hermeneutics: Gazing into Elliot Wolfson’s Speculum,” in Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 258-298. This is testified by the fact that nearly all of Wolfson’s published books contain some reference to the imaginative faculty. For example, Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005); Elliot R. Wolfson, Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings from Zoharic Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2007); Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011). For an overview of Wolfson’s thoughts on imagination, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 1-14. The primary treatment of imagination can be found in Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011). [67] Elliot R. Wolfson has published two poetry collections thus far. Elliot R. Wolfson, Pathwings: Philosophic and Poetic Reflections on the Hermeneutics of Time and Language (Barrytown, NY: Barrytown/Station Hill Press, 2004), and Elliot R. Wolfson, Footdreams & Treetales: Ninety-Two Poems (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007). Wolfson’s third collection of poetry, On One Foot Dancing, can be found online here. For an in-depth analysis of Wolfson’s poetics, see Barbara Ellen Galli, On the Wings of Moonlight: Elliot R. Wolfson’s Poetry in the Path of Rosenzweig and Celan (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007). For the sake of space, a discussion on Wolfson’s poetry will be treated in a future essay.

[68] For an in-depth treatment of Wolfson’s aesthetics seen through his scholarship, and vice versa, see, Marcia Brennan, Flowering Light: Kabbalistic Mysticism and the Art of Elliot R. Wolfson (Houston: Rice University Press, 2009). A selection of Wolfson’s art are online here, which is prefaced with: “elliot wolfson has long been preoccupied with the insights of jewish mystical traditions that approach an imageless god through the mediation of an intensely visual symbolic imaginary. his painted canvases communicate a corresponding sense that vision hovers ever on the borders of appearing and disappearing, disclosure and hiddenness. as the imagination seeks to give form to what remains nonetheless formless, the quintessentially human endeavor of hermeneutics is already caught up in the transcending eros of a divine creativity.”

The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos in General & Censorship (Part Three)

The Netziv, Reading Newspapers on Shabbos in General & Censorship (Part Three) By Eliezer Brodt This post is devoted to discussing comments received regarding parts one (here) and two (here). I will also add in some of the material which I had forgotten to quote [some of which I was reminded of by readers] along with additional material that I have recently uncovered. From the outset, I would like to thank all those people who sent in comments regarding the post. My email address is [email protected]; feel free to send comments. Censorship To begin, a few people commented in the comments section and others wrote to me disagreeing with Professor S. Stampfer’s “rule” I quoted on the general topic of censorship: “Those who impose censorship presumably assume that they are wiser than the author whose text they wish to suppress”. In the case of the Netziv, in all of the issues I have mentioned in the past two articles and in the many others I hope to write about, I feel this rule is one hundred percent true. Is there ever a case that censorship is “permitted”? I am sure there is. I will leave all this to discussions about Marc Shapiro’s new book. My concern here is, for example a sefer or other writings which the author himself printed in his own lifetime, quoted newspapers and never as far as we know wrote to take those quotes out. For us to tamper with the authors work that is wrong and thus I invoke Stampfer’s maxim. In general, on the subject of censorship which relates to educating children and more, it would be apropos to quote an important passage from the Netziv himself: ואמרתם אלהם. כבר נתבאר בריש הספר לשון ואמרת אליהם שהוא הלכות המקובלות בפרשה, והנה לא מצינו בכל פרשיות שבתורה זה הלשון ואמרתם אליהם, רק דברו אל בני ישראל לאמר, שביאורו שגם אהרן ידבר אותו הפרשה בעל פה בזה הלשון שאמר משה, אבל ואמרתם אליהם, שהוא הלכות ומשניות אינו מן הצורך לכתוב שילמוד אהרן עם ישראל, שהרי כל המשניות ותורה שב”פ חובה על כל רב ללמוד עם תלמידיו, וא”כ למאי כתיב בזו הפרשה ואמרתם אליהם, אלא כלפי שקשה לדבר בעניני זיבה וקרי שהוא באברי הזרע שמתפעלים במחשבה, והיינו סבורים שיותר טוב למעט הדיבור והלמוד בהם, ורק משה הוא מוכרח ללמד לישראל הקבלות שיש לו בע”פ, שלא יאבדו מישראל, אבל אחר שכבר למדם שוב אין המצוה להגות בהם כמצות ת”ת שהמה למצוה אפילו בלי תועלת למעשה ולזכירה, מש”ה כתיב בפרשה זו ואמרתם אליהם, שגם אהרן ילמוד עם ישראל אחר שכבר למד משה בסדר המשנה כמנהגו, וה”ה כל רב לתלמידיו, ומשום שבאמת בלמוד התורה אין יוצא רע והיא אילת אהבים ויעלת חן. [העמק דבר, מצורע, טו:ב] This passage would possibly also explain why in Volozhin, Moed Kotton was learnt even though it was not learned in some other Yeshivot.[1] Relying on Berdyczewski & Bialik in Volozhin Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps has a very valid comment when he wrote:

I find it odd that this blog post describes MYB’s article as “well written and appears to be a very accurate portrayal of Volozhin” when the post goes on to quote RCB’s letter in which he writes about that same article that he “found it to be full of errors and mistakes”. This touches upon a few issues. In the letter I printed from manuscript R’ Chaim Berlin it says: במכתב גלוי [וב]מכתב חתום, שמתי עיני על מאמרו, “תולדות ישיבת עץ החיים” בהאסיף [שנ]ת תרמ”ז. ומצאתיו מלא טעויות ושגיאות. והנני סופר ומונה אותם, בפרט, [ב]גליון מיוחד, הרצוף הֵנה – כבקשתו. A translation of this line would be that this article is full of errors and mistakes. However to be fair to Berdyczewski, we have this part of the letter- I printed it at the end of part two. In all there are only four corrections; even more importantly all those corrections relate to side issues – but nothing about daily life in the yeshiva, which is what I am “relying” on in my article. I would hardly call that a faulty article. Of course it is possible that Berdyczewski did not print the whole letter, However at that time Berdyczewski was not “off the derech” and I doubt he would print publicly an article while R’ Chaim Berlin was alive which could easily be printed elsewhere. [I am sure others will argue for the sake of arguing].

However in a footnote I wrote: See S. Stampfer’s Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century, (p. 159) who cites Bialik that everything Berdyczewski wrote in HaAsif about Haskalah was false. However this is a major issue with relying solely upon autobiographical information; each person is referring to the time he was in the Yeshivah and his experience.

Originally I was not planning on going into this topic, but as it relates to all this, I feel clarification is justified. On Berdyczewski in Volozhin, a fellow student writes: הוא הסופר העברי העתידי הד”ר מיכה יוסף ברדיצבסקי ז”ל. זה האברך הקטן הצנום, בידו האחת היה מחזיק את הגמרא, ובשניה הוא ומסלסל בפאותיו הקטנות, הולך וחושב מחשבותיו (בודאי מחשבות ומעשים שלו העתידים) [ישיבות ליטא, פרקי זכרונות, עמ’ 124]. Shmuel Mirsky writes: זכורני, כשמת מיכה יוסף ברדיצ’בסקי הספידוהו ד”ר הוגו ברגמן ור’ אלתר דרויאנוב. הראשון דיבר על ברדיצ’בסקי שהיה חי בשני עולמות, והשני אמר שהוא הכירו בשני העולמות גם יחד, והוסיף שכשלמד בוולאזין היה יושב מעוטף בטלית ומוכתר בתפילין ולומד, ואעפי”כ הכיר בו הנצי”ב שהוא מעולם אחר, והוא צדק [מוסדות תורה באירופה, עמ’ 61] In a memoir written by a student of Volozhin we find that he writes about the article of Berdyczewski: הנה התגלגל לידי האסיף לשנת התרמ”ז ובהחומר הנאסף שם במאמר מיוחד על ידי מר מיכה יוסף ברדיטשבסקי לתולדות ישיבת ולזין נאמר… החמר נאסף ממקרות ראשונים ומדויקים ויש לו ערך היסטורי שלם בלא שום פקפוק [ישיבות ליטא, פרקי זכרונות, עמ’ 71].[2] Bialik writes in a letter written while he was learning in Volozhin about Berdyczewski’s essay: וכל מה שכתוב ברדיטשבסקי להאסיף, לא מניה ולא מקצתיה… [אגרות חיים נחמן ביאליק, א, תרצח, עמ’ כא-כב]. In an autobiographical essay Bialik writes a bit more: תחלה לוולאזין ואח”כ לברלין. ולמה וואלאזין מפני שכפי השמועה לומדים שם בוואלאזין, יחד אם התלמוד גם שבע חכמות ושבעים לשון, בגליו או בסתר… תקותי לא באה. בוואלאזין אין זכר לשבע חכמות ולשבעים לשון, אבל יש שם בחורים כמוני, וטובים או רעים ממני, שיושבים ולמודים גמרא, גמרא, גמרא… [ספר ביאליק, תל-אביב תרצד, עמ’ 80-81]. Menachem Zlotkin, another student of Volozhin writes about this essay: שכל אלו שכתבו על בניה הישיבה בוולוז’ין ונתנו לנו את תמונתם, התמונות והציורים האלה אינם אלא של חלק קטן מתלמידי הישיבה, של הבחורים והאברכים הידועים להם מקרוב, ולא של הרוב הגדול של תלמידי הישיבה. בכתיבת ציורים כאלה הצטיין ביחוד הסופר מיכה יוסף ברדיטשבסקי, שנתן בהאסיף, ובהכרם תמונות של תלמידי הישיבה, שלא התאימו כלל למה שהיו באמת כפי שכתב ביאליק מוולוז’ן… על פי הציורים האלה היה מקבל הקורא את הרושם כאילו היתה ישיבת וולוז’ין, באותה תקופה, משתלה של משכילים, וכל הבא לוולוז’ין התמשכל מיד ונעשה חכם בשבע חכמות. קריאת ציורים כאלה היתה בודאי גורמת צער לראשי הישיבה ולתלמידי הישיבה שהיו רחוקים מרחק רב מהשכלה ומלימודי חול, ולא באו לוולוז’ין אלא כדי להשתלם בלימוד התלמוד ולא יותר… [פרקי זכרונות, עמ’ 183-184]. It appears from Zlotkin and Bialik that at least one aspect of Berdyczewski’s essay was not correct. I would venture to disagree, as anyone who learned in any particular Yeshivah and left and decides to follow up a few years later about life in said Yeshiva will usually find that some things change – different crowds bring different habits and the like. It’s very possible when Berdyczewski was in Yeshiva, Haskalah was being learnt in Volozin and when Bialik got there, there was not. Furthermore another student of Volozhin who learned there at the same time as Bialik writes: חדר הכרמלית שלהם נעשה רשות הרבים שבני הישיבה היו מצויים בו תמיד, מקום כינוס לתמימי דעים, בית ועד לאנשי שלומנו, מעין מרכז לעסקנות ולהשכלה. מכאן נשלחו בשם הישיבה מכתבי תנחומים למשפחות הנפטרים: רש”י פין צ”ה גרץ ול’ פינסקר מכאן יצאה ההתעוררות לאסוף כסף בתוך הישיבה לתמיכתו של יעקב רייפמן לעת זקנתו, פה נאגדו אגודות למינוי על עתונים, ולהפצת ספרי אגורה של בן אביגדור שהתחילו להופיע בשנה ההיא. בכל יום ויום היו בחורים מתכנסים לשם, ודנים ומתוכחים על דברי קודש וחול, על עניני הישיבה ועל עניני האומה, על עניני הכלל ועל עניני הפרט. חומר לשיחות שימשו מאמרים ראשיים, ושאר מאמרים ודברי סופרים שבעתונים ובמאספים ובספרים… [פרקי זכרונות, עמ’ 165] Even more strange is Zlotkin in the aforementioned account, a mere few pages later also mentions a few times (pp. 187-188)[3] that there was haskalah being learned in Bialik’s time, so I am not sure what exactly the issue with Berdyczewski was – maybe it was he made it out to be even more. As far as Haskalah being learned in Volzohin, there is no need to deal with it as it has been dealt with properly by Jacob J. Schacter in his frequently quoted article “Haskalah, Secular Studies and the Close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892“, Torah u-Madda Journal 2 (1990), pp. 76-133 and S. Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century. Bochurim knowing what went on in the Netziv’s home Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps wrote regarding a further issue: I continue to disagree with your assumptions about what people knew or didn’t know about what the Netziv did in his house. I don’t think there was nothing to talk about in Volhozhin besides what the Netziv did, but even if there was, that wouldn’t apply to things that they wouldn’t have a basis to know about and didn’t impact them. And even if they did know certain things of this sort, that doesn’t mean that they were in a position to rule out the Netziv engaging in some activity if an insider claimed he had done so. (Especially since the MB was published decades after Volhozhin closed.) First, here is an account of a fellow student of Volozhin who read the accounts of R’ Epstein: חבל מאד שגדולינו אדירי התורה והחכמה שקבלו חינוכם בישיבת וואלוזין לא העניקו לנו מזכרונתיהם על הישיבה הזאת, שבודאי ערכם רב לתולדות ישראל, ואלה החיים ב”ה אתנו, כדאי היה שיתקנו וימלאו את חובתם זו. עד היום לא נמצא איש שיאסף את כל החומר לתולדות ישיבת וולאוזין, אם כי אמנם חומר רב יש בספר הגאוני מקור ברוך לר’ ברוך הלוי אפשטיין, גיסו וקרובו של הנצי”ב. אבל לא די החומר הזה, ואולי עוד יוסיף תת לנו החכם הנ”ל ספר מיוחד לתולדות הישיבה [ישיבות ליטא, פרקי זכרונות, עמ’ 126] As I have written in the past, relying on this work is a topic that much has been written about and perhaps I will return to one day. However, in regard to what I wrote about the Bochurim watching every move of the Netziv, one talmid of Volozhin writes in his memoirs: מנהגים קלים של כפרות ושל תשליך, שרבים מגדולי ישראל קוראים להם מנהגים של שטות, היו מדקדקים בהם בכל זאת כבחמורות, וקראו עבריין למי שעבר עליהם ולא נזהר בהם. ובולוז’ין העמידו התלמידים משמרות על בית הרב בערב יום הכיפורים ובראש השנה, כדי לאמת את השמועה שאין נוהגים בו מנהג של כפרות ושל תשליך… [פרקי זכרונות, עמ’ 174].

It could be you (CFP) personally did not do so when you were in yeshivah, but from what I hear it’s still done by many bochurim. Why did the Netziv read newspapers? Another commenter wrote: What’s the big deal if the Netziv read “newspapers” such as HaLevanon or HaMaggid? It’s not like we’re talking about The NY Post or The Seattle Times. I’d consider them to be closer to something like a blend of the Me’asef and The Jerusalem Report which, apparently, the Netziv didn’t feel was a problem. To be fair I did not say it’s a big deal if the Netziv read newspapers, merely that some appear to feel it was a big deal and decided to cover it up. This gives me an excuse to talk about the Netziv! I would also like to emphasize something I have not yet done. The Netziv was one of the greatest gedolim of the past 200 hundred years. In the future I will elaborate at length about this subject. One of the most impressive attributes that everyone who knew him writes about was his tremendous Hasmadah, how he did not waste any time. For over forty years, he ran the largest Yeshivah in Europe, dealing with most of its daily issues, traveling often to defend the Yeshivah and at the same time giving shiur a few times a week and a daily Chumash Shiur. He also penned dozens of letters daily, was a world renowned posek and wrote and published numerous works. All this, making him one of (if not the most) prolific litvish author(s). It bears noting his concluding remark he signed most of his letters with: העמוס בעבודה.

One student relates: אף בלכתו מביתו להישיבה שהיה מהלך של חמשים רגל, היה מחזיק בידו את התנ”ך הקטן, או המשניות בפורמאט קטן ומעיין בו [פרקי זכרונות, עמ’ 125].[4] Yet he found time to read and comment in newspapers. He obviously felt it was very important, as it gave him a window to the world which he needed to understand. His son R’ Meir :Bar Ilan writes קריאת העתונים היתה לו לא בילוי זמן, אלא כפי הנראה צורך פנימי להיות קרוב לכל מה שמתרחש בעולם הגדול. מטבעו לא היה זר לעולם, לכל דבר שאירע כל עוד לא מצא בזה סתירה לאהבת התורה [מוולוזין עד ירושלים, א, עמ’ 138]. If one wishes to understand what newspapers were like in those days, one need go no further than to peruse the thousands of issues that are currently on-line. Perhaps at a later date I will elaborate on this subject, for now see Roni Beer Marx, Between Seclusion and Adaption; The Newspaper Halevanon and East European Orthodox Society’s Facing Up to Modern Challenges,(Heb.), PhD. Dissertation, Hebrew University, 2011. After reading this dissertation, one can understand much more the types of newspapers, importance of newspapers and why the gedolim needed to read them. To be clear, I never said these newspapers were similar to the NY Post or the like. Did the Netziv read other parts of the Newspapers besides for the Torah sections? Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps writes further: Regarding the Netziv and RCB reading newspapers on Shabbos, it would appear that these newspapers contained a section of Torah writing and all examples of the Netziv referencing them apparently refer to those sections (unless I’ve missed something). It’s worth bearing this in mind before conjuring up images of the Netziv reading something like the NYT on Shabbos. Once again I must disagree. It is clear that the Netziv read these newspapers cover to cover and not just the Torah sections. If one looks at the some of the articles the Netziv wrote in the Papers, collected in Igrot HaNetziv Me-Volozhin, one will see he comments on different things he read in different parts of the various papers.[5]

I would like to point to a few places in his work on Chumash that the information he is using is from the non-Torah parts of these papers. Many of these papers had sections dealing with science, nature and other worldly issues.[6] Of course, it is very possible that some of this information he could [or did] have gotten from other sources. See for example the following passages[7]: א. ויברא וגו’ למינהם. הודיע הכתוב דאע”ג דבשעת מאמר הקב”ה. יצאו כמה מיני בריות במים ובעוף. מ”מ גם אח”כ הוסיף הקב”ה לברוא מאלו אשר יצאו כבר במאמר כמה מינים. כגון תרנגול שיצא במאמר ברא בו ה’ כמה מינים באותו תכונה של תרנגול וכולם מין א’ לענין הרכבה כידוע. וכן בכל הנזכרים בזה המקרא הוא כן [העמק דבר, בראשית א:כא] ב. עפר מן האדמה. קיבץ מכל חלקי האדמה עפר מזה המקום מעט ומזה מעט. ולא ככל בהמה וחיה. וכדאי’ בסנהדרין דל”ח א’ אדם הראשון מכל העולם כולו והצבר עפרו. וטעמו של דבר שמשונה טבע האדם מכל בהמה וחיה שאינם יכולים לחיות אלא באקלים של כל בריה לפי טבעו. ובאותו אקלים הוא נוצר (וע’ מ”ש להלן ו’ י”ב) משא”כ האדם נוצר באופן שיהא יכול לחיות בכל העולם בין במקום היותר קר בין במקום שיותר חם וניזונים בכל אופן שהמקום גורם… [העמק דבר בראשית, ב:ז] ג. והנה נשחתה כי השחית וגו’. הכי מיבעי וירא אלהים כי השחית כל בשר. אלא ה”פ שראה כי גם אדמת הארץ נשחתה מטבעה שהטביע הבורא ית’ להספיק מזון לכל הברואים והנה אבדה כחה. ופי’ הטעם משום שהשחית כל בשר את דרכו וטבעו. כי כל בריה יש לה טבע מיוחדת במזונותיה ואויר הראוי לה. וכך טבע האדמה אשר הם עליה וכמש”כ לעיל ב’ ז’ י”ט. אבל כאשר השחיתו בדור הלז כל המינין ע”י הרכבות זרות את טבעון ודרכן על הארץ ממילא נשחתה האדמה לפניהם. וע”ע מש”כ לעיל ה’ כ”ט [העמק דבר, נח, ו:יב] ד. וימח את כל היקום. נמחו הגופות ודייק הכתוב אשר על פני האדמה דוקא אלו שהיו מונחים על פני האדמה. אבל נשתיירו כמה גופות שנפל עליהם עפר הרבה ע”י שטף המים ונשארו הגופות קיימין. והן הנה עצמות שמוצאין חופרי ארץ ומוצאין עצמות מבריות שלא נמצא עתה בעולם. ומזה שפטו הרבה שהי’ לפני בריאה זו עולם אחר ואז היו בריות אחרות… ומה שמוצאין בריות משונות הוא ממה שהרכיבו שני מינים שונים ונולד ע”י זה בריות משונות כמו הפרד היוצא מהרכבת סוס וגמל… [העמק דבר, נח, ז:כג] ה. ובכה ובעמך ובכל עבדיך יעלו הצפרדעים. גם בהיותם בבתיך שמה יוסיפו לעלות. היינו שיולידו שם הרבה כמותם. וכדכתיב בתהלים (ק”ה) שרץ ארצם צפרדעים בחדרי מלכיהם. היינו בחדרי מלכיהם שרצו. וכאן כתיב ובעמך בשו”א היינו עם מיוחד שומרי ראש פרעה. ומש”ה כתיב בזה המקרא קודם לבכל עבדיך. משום דחשיבי יותר. וזה המכה היתירה לא שלטה בכל עמי פרעה אלא בו תחלה ובשומרי ראשו ובעבדיו המה שרי יועציו. והנה ידוע דעות שונות בין מפרשים ראשונים ז”ל אם היו הצפרדעים מין הידוע המשחית הנמצא עוד היום ביאור ונקרא (קראקאדיל) או הוא מין הנמצא ברובי הנהרות וצועקים ומכרכרים… [העמק דבר, וארא, ז:כט][8]. ו. לא תקיפו וגו’ ולא תשחית וגו’. מנהגם היה להשמר בשערות הראש והזקן כמו שעוד היום מנהג בני ישמעאל כך ומי שהוא איש המעלה משמר ביותר שלא יגע באיזה שערות הפאות והזקן לרעה… [העמק דבר, קדושים, יט: כז] ז. את חקתי תשמורו. כפי’ חז”ל ברבה ר”פ אם בחקתי חוקותי שחקקתי שמים וארץ. כך הפי’ כאן כמבואר ברבה החקים שחקקתי עולמי בטבע כל אחד. והמערב מין בשא”מ ה”ז משחית טבעם כמש”כ ר”פ נח עה”פ את הארץ והנה נשחתה כי השחית כל בשר את דרכו עה”א. וכן לבישת שעטנז משחית סגולת חוטי צמר ופשתים וממה שהיה בפ”ע. והוא מסתרי הטבע וידועים לחכמי הטבע…. [העמק דבר, קדושים, יט:יט]

In the additions to the HD the Netziv adds to the last sentence: שהקושר חוט שזור של צמר ופשתים יחד על חוט הברזל של הטעלעגראף מפסיק המשכת הדיבור שנדבר ממרחק, הרי הוא משנה טבע הברזל וחקי הטבע שבברזל, ומכ”מ אינו אסור… ח. ושרט לנפש לא תתנו בבשרכם. מנהג האוה”ע לעשות הוספת צער למת שריטות על הבשר של אדם חי. וגם לעשות זכרון ע”י כתב קעקע שם המת. ומי שלא רצה לעשות על בשרו היה שוכר אדם אחר עני לעשות על בשרו ומשלם לו כמו שעוד היום הנהג שם לשכור מקוננות ומתופפות על הלב… [העמק דבר, קדושים, יט: כח] ט. ונתנה הארץ יבולה. לא כתיב פריה כמו לעיל כ”ה י”ט. דפרי הארץ אחר עבודת הארץ אינו שכר מצוין שהרי כך דרך העולם אלא יבולה משמעו הולכה ממקום למקום כמש”כ לעיל בפי’ יובל. ונכלל בזה פירות שאין באים ע”י הזריעה וגידול במקומו אלא ממציאים כחות הארץ מרחוק ומעומק עד שנעשו הפירות גדלים מהרגלן וכמו שידוע שיש לזה המצאות מאומנים במלאכת גידולי הארץ… [העמק דבר, בחוקתי, פרק כו:ד]. יא. הוא משל על אוהל אנשי יעקב. והנה משונה גידולי גנה לשדה. דשדה אינו נזרע אלא מין א’ או שנים משא”כ זרעוני גינה המה רבים. מכ”מ כל גן יש בו מין א’ שהוא העיקר אלא שסביביו נזרע עוד הרבה מינים מעט מעט… והיינו שהמשיל כל א’ מאנשי יעקב כגנה שיש בה מין מיוחד ומכ”מ מלאה מינים רבים. אמנם גנה שאינה על הנהר ממהרת לשנות צורתה. ועלי ירקות נובלים מהר ונראים כמושים. אבל שעל הנהר בכל בוקר מתחדש ומתחזק ביופי גידול כל ירק… והנה כבר המשיל הכתוב בפרשת שופטים כי האדם עץ השדה אמנם יש ד’ מיני עצים. א’ הוא קוץ מונד אשר לא ביד יקחו שאין בהם תועלת. ולא נבראו אלא כדי להזיק לאחרים ולהיות כברזל ועץ חנית. היינו מזיקים בעצמם או משמשים למזיקים. או לשרוף אותם להחם בם בימי שבת היינו בעת מנוחה… ב’ עץ האטד. שחסים בצל ענפיו ועליו וכדומה לו… ג’ עץ פרי… אבל אין נהנים מגוף האילן בקיומו. ד’ ארז שנהנים מגוף האילן בבנין וכדומה…. ויש ארז טוב לתורן עלי מים…[העמק דבר, בלק, כד:ו] יב. יזל מים וגו’. אחר שהראהו הקב”ה שבחן של בניו. הראהו שבחי הדורות משעה שנכנסו לארץ עד ימי משיח שיבא ב”ב. ולא ראה ימי הרעה רק ימי הטובה כדי לנקר את עיניו ונגמר זה הענין בפעם הרביעית. ואמר על דור השופטים שהיה להם מלחמות וגלו הרבה בקרב אוה”ע. ואנו לא ידענו ועוד היום יש מקומות שנמצאים ישראל שאומרים שהן מזמן פילגש בגבעה…[9] [העמק דבר, בלק, כד:ז] יג. וחכמים התרים את התבל מעידים שיש עוד היום במדבר סלע מוציא מים אלא שלא בשפע כ”כ… [העמק דבר, חקת, כ: ח] יד. כי תצא למלחמה על אויביך. בפרשה הקודמת למדנו שני אופני מלחמות. א’ במלחמת תנופה שיוצאים במחנה מול מחנה. ובזה כתיב כי תצא למלחמה על אויבך וראית סוס וגו’. ב’ שמצירים על עיר ובזה כתיב כי תצור על עיר. ומדכתיב כאן כי תצא למלחמה על אויבך. מבואר דמיירי באופן הראשון. ולא כמש”כ הראב”ע. מעתה יש להבין דלפי הנראה ענין פרשה זו שייך יותר במלחמת מצור על עיר מלאה אנשים ונשים וכשנפתחה והרי רואה אשה יפ”ת. משא”כ כשיוצאים במלחמה בשדה מה לנשים בשם. אבל כבר ביארנו בס’ בראשית י”ד ט”ז שדרכם היה באוה”ע. בעת שיוצאים בחורים למלחמה יוצאות ג”כ נשים יפות מקושטות ועומדות לינשא. ומי בחור שמזדרז במלחמה ורוח גבורה נוססה בו. קופצות עליו נשים היפות. ועפ”י זה מתחרים הבחורים בעוז. והיינו דכתיב שמלת שביה. ומשמעות שמלה בכ”מ בגד חשוב כמו ושמת שמלותיך עליך. ומשום שהיו מתקשטות וכשלוקחים אותן בשביה נמצאות בקישוטן. משא”כ במלחמת מצור ואין הבחורים עושים מלחמה ודבר גבורה ומה להנשים להתקשט אז בשעת השבי [העמק דבר, כי תצא, כא:י] More additions and comments related to part one: Additions to note six about the Journal ‘Ittur Sofrim’ Here are parts of the fourth part of the journal which was never published. Addition to note ten: About the Netziv’s letters see;Mekor Baruch, 4, pp. 2000-2010. Moshe Tzinovitz writes: בקשר לכתיבת מכתביו יש לציין, כי בכל מכתב ומכתב היה כותב פרט מיוחד מפרשת השבוע, כשהוא מתאים תמיד לתוכנו המכתב ולאיש שאליו נערך המכתב [עץ חיים, עמ’ 238]. Rabbi Chaim Berlin writes in his Hesped on the Netziv: אבל תלמיד חכם יחיד בדורו… הרי שמו הולך מסוף העולם עד סופו, הוא השליט בכל דבר הוראה, בתשובותיו לכל אפסי ארץ… לכולם היה רב מובהק… [דרשות הנצי”ב, עמ’ קמה]. לכתוב כל הלילה חידושי תורה ותשובות, ומכתבים לחזק הישיבה… וכמה מכתבים פיזר בענין ישוב ארץ ישראל… [דרשות הנצי”ב, עמ’ קמו].[10] Bar Ilan writes: בין עשרות המכתבים, ממש עשרות שאבא ז”ל היה כותב כמעט בכל יום בעצם ידו… היו רבים לא תשובות בדברי הלכה, גם לא בעניני הישיבה, אלא תשובות לשאלות בענינים מסויימים של כלל ישראל או בעניני הקהילה בערים שונות… לצערנו לא היה אז המנהג להעתיק את המכתבים, וכל אלפי המכתבים שהיו יכולים לשמש מקור לחקר החיים התרבותיים במשך שני דורות אבדו… דעתו היתה שונה ממחשבותים של רוב רבנים… מדפסים שו”ת שלהם, וכמה מהם קנו שם בעולם רק על ידי התשובות. אבא ז”ל לא התייחס לזה בחיבה יתירה הוא היה אומר כשפונים בשאלה יש להשיב, ואם יש דברים שאינם פשוטים מן הראוי כמובן לברר את ההלכה על פי המקורות, אבל לעשות מתשובה או שאלה חיבר שלם עם ענפים או סניפים כמו שהיו מחברים גדולים ידועים נוהגים לעשות אז הרי זה קצת יותר מדי… דבר זה מוכיח, כי אין הכוונה להשיב על השאלה אלא לחבר ספרים ולהראות גדולה… נוסף לזה לא היה אבא ז”ל מחשיב הרבה כתיבת חיבורים והדפסתם רק לשם פירסום והיה אומר מה ערך יש לזה כשכל אחד יפרסם בדפוס כל מה שהוא כותב ומוצא חן בעיניו, הרי על זה נאמר עשות ספרים הרבה אין קץ… [מוולוז’ין עד ירושלים, א, עמ’ 137-138][11]. Elsewhere Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan writes: Addition for note 22: In regard to Chumash being learnt in Volozhin Reb Itzeleh Volozhiner writes in his introduction to Nefesh Ha-Chaim about his father Reb Chaim Volozhiner: לא הניח ידו מלהגיד לבני עירו אחר תפלת השחר פרשה מסדרא דשבוע יום יום. וכל הנכנסין לביהמ”ד יצאו מלא דבר כשאר כ”א קלט לפי דרכו. אוהבי הפשט קלטו עומק פשוטו במקרא. ודורשי הרשומים דרוש דרשו ממה שלקחה אזנם. מה שנזרקה מפיו מדי דברו בקצרה. וכל השומעים שמחו במתק שפתיו אשר ברור מללו כקורא הפרשה לפני תשב”ר. A student of Reb Itzeleh Volozhiner writes: ומדי דברי בה אזכור ימי נעורי ועד היום לא אשכח את רגשי העונג, עת אשר בכל יום ויום ראיתי אה הגאון הגדול הקדוש… הנעלה על כל בני דורו מו”ה יצחק זצל”ה מוואלאזין יורה לנו בבקר בבקר הפרשה חומש מפרשת השבוע עפ”י פשוטו של מקרא הממשיך את הלב, מי שלא ראה את פני הגאון הנ”ל אשר תואר פנים כפני מלאך אלקים, ומי שלא שמע מדברותיו המרעיפים כטל וכמטר לקחו לא יכול לצייר עונג הנפש ורחשי לב טהור שברא לנו אלקים… [המליץ, שנה יז, יום כג אדר, גליון ו, תרמ”א, עמ’ 119]. Another talmid writes: דרכו של הגאון מהרי”ץ הי’ להתפלל ביום השבת בבהמ”ד של הקהל ואחר התפלה הי’ מגיד פרשה אחת מן הסדר של יום והיו כל בני הישיבה הולכים לבהמ”ד לשמוע הדרוש [ר’ אליהו לעווינזאהן, מכתב מאליהו, עמ’ 47]. R’ Simcha Edelman (father of the Marcheshes) writes: נהירנא כד הוינא בר שיתסר למדתי בקיץ תקצז בישיבת וולאזין והרב הגאון האב”ד מ’ יצחק ז”ל הגיד לפני התלמידים יום יום אחר תפלת השחר פרשה בתורה מסדר השבוע ושמעתי מפיו… [התירוש, ג, עמ’ 155]. Additions to the sources in note 22 about the Netziv’s Chumash shiur: הוא זכה ללמד תורה ברבים בישיבת עץ החיים אשר באוואלאזין כיובל שנים והעמיד לאלפים בישראל ומורים, הוא הגיד יום יום אחר תפלת השחר, לפני בני הישיבה, פרשה בתורה ויפרשנה כדרכו בקדש, בהלך נפש בפשט ודרוש, עד להפליא… [הספד של תלמידו,[12] ר’ ישראל בנימין פייוולזאהן, צרור החיים, ווארשא 1914, עמ’ טו (= ר’ זאב רבינר, מרן הרב קוק זצ”ל, עמ’ רכה)]. יש אשר בבוקר לאחר התפלה, אך ישב הנצי”ב אל מקומו בראש השלחן והתחיל מבאר לתלמידי הישיבה את פרשת השבוע [פרקי זכרונות, עמ’ .[88 הדבר הי’ באחד הימים… אחר תפלת שחרית, ואחר שהגיד שעור פרשה חמש מסדר פרשיות השבוע, כדרכו יום יום, [מקור ברוך, ד, עמ’ 1978]. ראש הישיבה הראשי היה הרב הגאון נפתלי צבי הירש בערלין ז”ל… ראש הישיבה הטיף פרשה מחומש בכל יום בבוקר אחרי תפילה… [יהושע ליב ראדוס, זכרונות, עמ’ 65]. בעלות השחר קמתי… התפללתי בלי כונה, שמעתי את הפרשה של חומש מפי’ הנצי”ב אשר הטיף כדרכו, בכל יום ויום לאחר התפלה, והדברים לא נכנסו לאזני… [מ’ אייזנשטדט, הצפירה, תרע”ח, מספר 35].[13] In 1881 Rabbi Baruch Epstein wrote an article in Hamelitz about Volozhin, defending it from attacks in the newspapers [See Appendix one]. He describes the daily routine in Volozhin: סדר היום והלמודים בשעה 8 בבוקר אחר תפילת שחרי, יורה הגרנצי”ב נ”י פרשה חומש מפרשת השבוע וכולל בה פשטי המקראות על פי יסודי טובי המבארים משולבים עם דברי חז”ל (וזה לא כביר הוציא לאור ביאורו הנאור עה”ת בשם ‘העמק דבר’ וראוהו חכמי ישראל בארצנו וחו”ל ויפזרו לו מלא חפנים תהלות ותשבחות וזה לא כביר הגיע לו מכתב תודה והלל מהד”ר א. א. הרכבי), עוד יוסיף דברי אהבה וחן, לטעת בלבות התלמידים מוסר ומדות והנהגות ישרות וצניעות בין אדם למקום ובין אדם לחבירו וחובות היהודי לעמו ולארצו ולמלכו, וירחיב דרושו עד ערך שעה ויותר…” [המליץ, יז, ב’ אדר, תרמ”א (1881), גליון 3, עמ’ 54[. Another student who learned in Volozhin in the years 1873-1876 describes in his Yiddish Memoirs: דער נציב פלעגט זאגען אלע טאג נאכ’ן דאוונען א פרשה חומש פון דער וואך. דער חומר איז אפגעדרוקט געווארען [תרגום: הנצי”ב היה רגיל לומר בכל יום לאחר התפילה פרשה בחומש מתוך פרשת השבוע. החומר נדפס] [אלכנסדר זיסקינד הורוויץ, זכרונות פון צוויי דורות, עמ’ .[226-227 One more description of the Netziv’s Chumash Shiur worth quoting, although not based on an eye witness account but rather interviews,[14] is from Fischel Schneersohn’s classic work Chaim Gravitzer: לאחר התפילה עמד ר’ הירש לייב מעוטף בטלית ותפילין, וכמנהגו בכל יום אמר פרשה של חומש מן הסדרה של השבוע. ואותה שעה נדלק בעיניו הניצוץ הקסום, המתחדש בכל רגע ורגע, ובקלסתר פניו מאירה בת צחוק של איש מלהב בעמלו ואינו מתייגע אלא מתבסם וההולך ביגיעתו, יגיעת הקודש וכלל שהוא נלהב ומשוקע, כן יישא ביתר עוז ויתר שלווה ובטחה בעול עמלו המושך כל כך את הלב. הפרשה של החומש נמשכת כמחצית השעה… [חיים גראביצר, עמ’ 377]. Rabbi Chaim Berlin writes in his Hesped on the Netziv: אבל תלמיד חכם יחיד בדורו… הרי שמו הולך מסוף העולם עד סופו, הוא השליט בכל דבר הוראה, בתשובותיו לכל אפסי ארץ… לכולם היה רב מובהק וכולם היו תלמידיו… ואף מי שלא היה שמה הלא קבל תורה מספריו… וזה מהעמק דבר… [דרשות הנצי”ב, עמ’ קמה]. Addition to the end of note 22: I wrote in part one: “In Pirkei Zichronot [p.84] we find a claim from Shmuel Zitron that R. Yehoshua Levin gave a chumash shiur using Mendelsohn’s Biur. However, S. Stampfer [ibid, p. 68] already notes that Zitron’s memoirs are not always accurate.”

Add to this: Max Lilienthal records in his memoirs about his visit to Yeshivat Volozhin his discussion with Reb Itzeleh Volozhiner where Reb Itzeleh told him the following:

We have prayers in the morning… After the Service I explain to them some chapters of the Sidrah of the week and the Haphtarah with the commentary of Rashi, adding some free explanations of my own, into which I interweave some remarks from the commentary of Moshe Dessau (Mendelssohn) [David Philipson, Max Lilienthal, American Rabbi Life and Writings, New York 1915, p. 348]. [Thanks to Zevi Fried, for sending me this reference].

However it’s worth stressing that while many of the parts of Lilienthal’s account appear to be true, not all of them are.[15]

Another connection between Mendelssohn and Reb Itzeleh Volozhiner can be found in a Haskamah that Reb Itzeleh Volozhiner gave to a 1852 edition of the Biur. However it’s pretty clear that Reb Itzeleh Volozhiner was required to do so by the government.[16]

There is, however, a connection between Mendelssohn’s Biur and the Netziv. Dr. Nissim Eliakim in his work Haamek Davar la- Netziv, [Moreshet Yaakov 2003, pp. 45-48] notes a few places in the Netziv’s writings where there are similarities.

Gil Perl comments on this (p. 175): “As of a result of a few striking similarities between the work of the Netziv and that of Moses Mendelsohn, Eliakim (45-48) perceptively states that “with great care I would guess that Mendelssohn’s Biur did not escape the sight of the Netziv.” Again, Netziv’s commentary on furnishes the evidence which Eliakim lacks.” Gil Perl points to two passages in the work on Sifre where the Biur is quoted.[17]

During the Volozhin Yeshiva’s long existence, both the government and the Maskilim tried several times to close it down. One such instance was in 1858, when, amidst the dealings with the government, a document was written describing the curriculum of the Yeshiva. In the document it states that students were learning chumash with Rashi and the Biur.[18]

Addition to note 26: For more on the censorship and the new version of the Ha’amek Davar see here, here, here and here Addition for note 28: the cite for what the Netziv wrote about the Newspaper Ha’Shachar to Dr. Eliyahu Harkavi should be: שנות דור ודור, א, עמ’ קפד (= תולדות בית ה’ בוואלאז’ין, עמ’ 86-88; אגרות הנצי”ב, עמ’ לב). On the Reading of the Ha’Shachar in Volozhin see Pirkei Zichronot, p. 73; Shaul Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century, (p. 157); Jacob J. Schacter, Haskalah… p. 86.

Appendix one:

Appendix two:

Appendix three:

[1] See Pirkei Zichronot, p. 154. For sources on this see my Likutei Eliezer, p. 85 note 228. Add to that: R’ Y. Avidah, Kos Shel Eliyahu, pp. 26-27; M. Breuer, Ohalei Torah, p. 506; R’ Teichtel, Mishnat Zachir Al Hatorah, introduction, p. 11; R Yair Chaim Bachrach, Mekor Chaim, Introduction. [2] See also what Y. Rivkind writes: מאיר ברלין איז ניט דער היסטאריקער פון וואלאזינער ישיבה… נאך מעהר, די תקופה, די לעצטע, וואס מאיר ברלין באשרייבט, פון דער גרויסער שרפה… איז מעהר אדער וועניגער באשריבען געווארען. האט דאף עפעס אין דער תקופה געלערענט אין וואלאזין די גרויסע ווארט- פיהרער און ליטעראטורמיסטער פון אונזער דור, בערדיטשעווסקי, דרויאנאוו, יהואש, ליעסין, ביאליק און פיל פיפ אנדערע. איבערהויפט האט בערדיטשעווסקי אין זיין לערן-צייט פיל געשריבען איבער דער ישיבה און איהרע פראבלעמען און פון איהר אינערליכען לעבען (אין הכרם, המליץ און האסיף)… תרגום חפשי: עוד יותר, התקופה האחרונה, שמאיר ברלין כותב [עליה] – מהשריפה הגדולה בשנת 1886 עד לסגירת הישיבה ע”י הצאר הרוסי ב1892 – פחות או יותר נכתב אודותיה. הלא בתקופה זו למדו בוולוז’ין מנהיגי-הכתיבה ואמני-הספרות של דורנו, ברדיטשבסקי, דרוינוב, יהואש, ליעסין, ביאליק, והרבה אחרים. מעבר לכך, ברדיטשבסקי בתקופת כתיבתו כתב הרבה אודות הישיבה ובעיותיה וחייה הפנימיים. [די צוקוונפט, ז (1933), עמ’ 670-671, וראה שם, עמ’ .[673 [3] Shaul Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century, p. 159 also makes a similar point. See also the introduction to Pirkei Zichronot, pp. 31-40. For more about Bialik in Volozhin, see Pirkei Zichronot, pp. 78, 157, 180, 182, 195. See also Menachem Zlotkin, ‘HaChevrah HaChashayit Netzach Yisrael’, Molad 5:27 (1950) pp. 181- 185; Rabbi Nosson Kamenetsky, Making of a Godol, vol. 1, pp. 445-446, vol. 2, p. 893, pp. 896-902. [4] See the letter of R’ Gifter, Mili Di-Igrot, (2015), pp. 51-52. [5] See also the piece I quote in note 9. [6] See Y. Shavit and Y. Reinharz, The Scientific G-d (heb.), 2011; Roni Beer Marx, Between Seclusion and Adaption; The Newspaper Halevanon and East European Orthodox Society’s Facing Up to Modern Challenges,(Heb.), PhD. Dissertation, Hebrew University, 2011, pp. 116-205. [7] Gil Perl, The Pillar of Volozhin, pp 176-178, points to some of these pieces. [8] See Rabbi S. Gershuni, Hama’yan, 52:4 [202] (2012), p. 54 note, 21. [9] On this see Igrot HaNetziv Me-Volozhin, pp. 162-163 where he wrote a letter to R’ Yosef Charny, [author of Sefer Ha- Masot]: לשמחת לבבי שמעה אזני כי רגלי מע”כ שיחי’ מועדות ללכת שנית לקהלות דאגעסטאן… שע”י מעל’ שיחי’ נזכה לדעת משלום אחינו הנדחים שמה ולחקור ולהתחקות על מעשיהם והליכות עולמם… וכאשר ראיתי בעלי המגיד ושאר מכה”ע לב”י,שמו לב אני סגולה לדעת כמה פרטים אשר צמאה גם נפשי לדעתם. ואני הנני להוסיף שאלה איך היה סדר מנהגם בפתחי נדות? וכן.. סכין שחיטה…”. [10] This is repeated in the various Hespedim that Reb Chaim gave on his father; see Drashos HaNetziv, p. 147, 148. The reason why Reb Chaim gave several Hespedim on his father can be found in Drashos HaNetziv, p. 153. [11] About this work see Appendix three. [12] On him, see: Moshe Tzinovitz, Etz Chaim, p. 409. [13] In Shimon Meller’s recent book Rabon Shel Kol Bnei Hagoleh, on R’ Chaim Soloveitchik, he quotes various passages from memoirs of Rabbi Menachem Tzvi Eisenstadt, (for example on pp. 286, 288,289, 306-308). This passage appears on p. 308. On page 289 Meller cites the source for this memoir, an article in the Newspaper Dos Vort. On page 288 and 306 he has pictures of Rabbi Menachem Tzvi Eisenstadt. However, I was unable to locate such a piece, nor could I find a Rabbi Menachem Tzvi Eisenstadt who learned in Volozhin. There was a Rabbi Menachem Tzvi Eisenstadt, who was close to R’ Chaim but he was born in 1901, from whom a nice collection of his material was printed in 2003 called Minchat Tzvi. Obviously, he could not be writing memoirs about the Netziv. There was a R’ Michal Eisenstadt, who was a close talmid of the Netziv and his comments on the Haemek Shealah were included inside. The Netziv even thanks him at the end of the introduction to his Haemek Shealah. But as far as I could locate, he never printed memoirs about Volozhin. His Torah novellea were collected and printed as Yad . [The Netziv also quotes him in his Hamek Davar, Vayirah [25:47], (Harchev Davar). There was a Moshe Elozer Eisenstadt who learned in Volzhin and wrote memoirs about Volozhin. These memoirs were translated from Russian and printed in Pirkei Zichronot (pp. 105-119). The passages which Meller printed did not appear in this chapter. After much searching eventually I found some other articles of Moshe Elozer Eisenstadt; one of them was this article in Ha-Zefirah (some were quoted by Stampfer but not this one). See Appendix two. [14] About this see: בשמו של אברהם צארט קשור ביקורו של פר’ פישל שניאורסון, שבא לוולוז’ין כדי לאסוף חומר לשם כתיבת הכרך השני של ספרו חיים גראוויצער המוקדש כולו לוולוז’ין [ספר וולוז’ין, עמ’ 497]. Thanks to Shlomo Hoffman for this source. I will return to this book in one of the next parts of this series. [15] On this visit see: R’ Dovid Soloveichik, Shiurei Rabbenu Meshulam Dovid HaLevi, (2014), pp. 566-569; R’ Moshe Tzvi Neryeh, Pirkei Volozhin, pp. 28-30; Jacob J. Schacter, “Haskalah, Secular Studies and the Close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892“, Torah u-Madda Journal 2 (1990), p. 124-125; Shaul Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century, pp. 58-59; Moshe Tzinovitz, Etz Chaim, pp. 185-191; Rabbi Nosson Kamenetsky, Making of a Godol, 1, pp. 198-255. Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, R. Moshe Shmuel Vidoro, pp. 46-48 translated part of these memoirs of Lilienthal into Hebrew but not this passage. This was already noted by Jacob J. Schacter, ibid, p. 124 note 85. See Shevil Ha’zahav, pp. 8-9 about Rabbi Mordechai Eliasberg’s meeting with Lilienthal. For a general account of the impact of Lilienthal’s visit see Pauline Wengeroff, Memoirs of a Grandmother, 2010, pp. 174-186. For more on Reb Itzeleh’s shiurim, see: Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, R. Moshe Shmuel Ve-doro, p. 41 On Reb Itzeleh Volozhiner, see: R’ Moshe Tzvi Neryeh, Pirkei Volozhint, pp.26-36. [16] See Berdyczewski’s article about Volozhin in Volume three of HaAssif (1886), p. 240 where he mentions the haskamah. Interestingly enough, R’ Chaim Berlin in his article in Beis Hamedrash (see part two), containing his corrections to Berdyczewski’s article, does not comment about this. See also see Pirkei Zichronot, p. 84; P. Sandler, Habiur Letorah, p. 180; see also Jacob J. Schacter, Haskalah,“ Secular Studies and the Close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892“, Torah u-Madda Journal 2 (1990), pp. 123-124; R’ Eliach, HaGoan, 3, p. 1307. [17] See also Gil Perl, The Pillar of Volozhin, p. 37, 89. [18] See S. Stampfer, Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century, p.195. Toldot Beis Hashem B’Volozhin (p. 236) briefly mentions this “closing” but does not mention the curriculum.